In Support of a Linkage between the Funding of Graduate Medical Education and Care of the Indigent

Rapidly advancing trends establishing medical care as an economic product rather than a social good have created an unprecedented threat to our present highly developed system for the graduate education of physicians. These same forces are limiting the capacity of teaching hospitals to care for the medically indigent. In recent decades both graduate medical education and care of the indigent have been major concerns of teaching hospitals; nevertheless, there has been minimal financial interdependence of these activities. Innovations are now necessary in both areas in order to deal with the major obstacles that teaching hospitals face in meeting their commitment . . .