Challenge of Pediatric Education

Abstract

The paper by Starfield1 is provocative and discomforting to all pediatricians whether clinician-practioner or academician-educator. She issues a keen challenge to us, and that is healthy for any professional discipline, certainly for a specialty discipline characterized by optimism and resilience. The data base for Starfield's analysis of pediatric practice is limited by confinement to the conclusion of an era of more abbreviated or traditional subspecialty-oriented graduate pediatric training. She reflects about the practice patterns of pediatricians who were trained before the seminal deliberations and conclusions of the Task Force on Pediatric Education.2 The Task Force and the certifying and accrediting arms of American pediatrics initiated sweeping changes in the philosophy and structure of pediatric residency training.