The Academic Generalist: An Endangered Subspecies?

To the Editor.— As young pediatricians in academic research fellowships, we have followed with interest the article by Dr Haggerty1 and the resulting commentaries2,3 about "the academic generalist." These articles gave us an appreciation for how far academic general pediatrics has come, and we are grateful to Dr Haggerty and others for their extensive contributions to the development and advancement of the field. However, we believe that most academic divisions of general pediatrics have evolved in an incomplete form, neglecting a most important element of scholarly inquiry.