Four practicing pediatricians were followed by an observer with a stopwatch for a total of 18 days to gain a profile of how their working days were spent. An average of 48% of the day was spent with patients, 12.5% on the phone, and 9% on paper work. Fifty per cent of patient time was spent with well children, and 22% on children with minor respiratory illness. Intellectual understimulation seemed to arise from spending the majority of time with children who did not require their special talents. In view of the alarming decline in ratio of physicians to child population, pediatricians are urged to play a decisive role in formulating the alternative patterns of child health care that must inevitably develop in the United States.