Flexner Report

Flexner Report Linked to Growth of Specialty Medicine

By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today Published: January 30, 2010 WASHINGTON -- A century ago, Abraham Flexner's pivotal report redefined medical education and laid the groundwork for the growth of academic medical centers, but increasing medical specialization was an unintended consequence and threatens patient care, according to a paper published in an anniversary issue of Academic Medicine The growing importance of academic medical centers during the last century has caused medicine's "social contract" to "erode," to be replaced by "a money culture that dominates the academic health system and has led to distortions in medical education and to our present maldistribution of physicians by specialty." So wrote Michael Prislin, MD, professor of family medicine at the University of California, and colleagues who authored the paper, one of a special series of articles commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Flexner Report./.../