Introduction

Abstract

One of the ongoing objectives of the Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute is to provide pediatricians with practical information on issues that will improve the health of children. Each year the Board of Trustees selects a topic whose importance is just becoming clear, a topic that is not being addressed adequately in other forums or in the usual pediatric reference sources. Recent topics have included what the pediatrician can contribute toward violence prevention and how the pediatrician can thrive in the changing health care system. The Board of Trustees chose community-based education for the pediatric resident as the 1996 topic. A variety of factors, including the dramatic increase in managed care during the past few years, has led to an increasing proportion of children's care being shifted from inpatient to outpatient settings and has augmented the need for pediatrician involvement in public health and community issues. Some necessary major changes in resident education are reflected in the new Pediatric Residency Review Committee requirements and in the Pediatric Education in Community Settings. A Manual, whose sponsors or supporters included the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. After the Board selected this topic for the 1996 conference, a planning committee—Errol Alden, Carol Berkowitz, Tom DeWitt, Lewis First, Alan Kohrt, and Ken Roberts—determined the structure, content, target audience, and possible faculty. Tom DeWitt and Ken Roberts, chosen as co-chairs, assumed the crucial and laborious tasks of developing the specifics of the program and of identifying the conference faculty and the invitees.