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This remarkable analytical study of general practice in North Carolina in 1953-1954 should be studied and meditated upon by physicians in practice and those who teach them. Here a real effort is made to study the doctor at work and to see how he goes about his business of talking to, examining, studying, diagnosing, treating, and managing his patients. A serious problem in any study which is as intensive as this is that it cannot be very extensive. The majority of analyses available from the very comprehensive study included less than one hundred physicians. It is, of course, forbiddingly difficult to try to extrapolate the findings from one place at one time to other places and times. Herein lies one of the difficulties of interpretation. Another criticism which will occur to skeptical thinkers is the fact that this was a study of general practice by internists. However carefully and honestly
William B. Bean (1957) studied this question.