Medicine at Center Stage

Abstract

I have never seen a time in the past four decades when so much attention has been paid to medicine. Not a day goes by without a story on television, in the newspapers, or in popular magazines about medical care or its organization. Hardly a story begins without a reminder that we not only fail to take good care of all of our populace, but are also breaking the national bank -- and the President and Congress seem poised to do something about it. With all the attention, this should be an extraordinary opportunity for us as physicians to define . . .