As It Was and Is

<I>Is medical education's mission to increase the earning capacity of the profession or is it to improve the public welfare and to advance medical knowledge?</I> To answer this question the author has let the great ones of medicine's past address the reader directly. Flexner divided MDs into two groups: those in academic medicine and those in private practice and concluded that the two groups are inherently at war with one another. And Flexner observed: without the faculty controlling patient beds the school cannot even organize a clinical faculty in any proper sense of the term. The author humorously discusses problems encountered in pursuing these lofty goals. Stories of growing up in South Alabama--getting a medial education--hospital work--a tour of duty at NIH--and thirty years in the Texas Medical Center spice these fascinating life-experiences.