Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Academic medicine and research universities have enjoyed a close relationship that has strengthened both, spawning an era of discovery and scholarship in medicine that has earned the U. S. academic medical enterprise a high level of public trust and a deserved leadership position in the world. However, changes in the financing of medical care and in the organization of health care delivery have dramatically affected the medical school-university partnership. ⋯ As a corollary, the university, through its medical school, must provide these faculty the time and the financial support necessary to fulfill their academic mission. The size of the clinician-educator faculty should be determined by the academic needs of the medical school rather than by the service demands of its associated health care delivery system. To accomplish this, academic medical centers will have to develop cadres of associated or clinical faculty whose primary focus is on the practice of medicine.