| The modern physician, states the author, has become a professional cripple who can no longer practice without the support of a hospital. He has the advanced scientific knowledge but does not know how to apply this for the physical, social, and mental well-being of all people, especially when practicing in a developing country. This is because medical training has become entirely institutionalized and unrelated to the community setting. Patients who cannot aff who are not motivated, to come to a hospital are left out of the system. On the other hand, the sick individual at home is also left out of public health services, which evolved separately and developed a mass approach to health problems. This separation oriented public health and hospital-oriented curative medicine is inefficient and expensive and has proved disastrous in developing countries. According to the author, the answer to the problem is community medicine, which strives to bring curative medic into the community and home and to bring preventive medicine into the hospital. In practice, it is likely that public health workers, who have closer contact with the community than do clinicians, will exert the greatest influence on the planning and implementation of community medicine. In any event, introduction of community medicine into the curriculum will revolutionize medical education. |