Medical schools and the public interest: a conversation with Robert G. Petersdorf. Interview by John K. Iglehart.

Abstract

Prologue: Amidst the world of turbulent change that marks American medical care, one sphere stands out in its capacity to maintain its traditional ways: medical education. Ironically, its new national spokesman, Robert Petersdorf president of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), has always been an outspoken voice for change in medical education. Petersdorfs expressions, regarded over the years as heretical by some of his academic medical colleagues, have not prevented him from becoming one of this community's most esteemed members. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees. Petersdorf also has enjoyed a varied career in academic medicine as a department chairman (internal medicine, 1964–1979) at the University of Washington's School of Medicine, as a president of a Harvard University teaching hospital (Brigham and Women's, 1979–1981), and as a vice-chancellor and medical school dean at the University of California, San Diego (1981–1986). Petersdorf was appointed president of the AAMC in 1986, replacing John A. D. Cooper. Their leadership styles are quite different. Cooper was an imperious advocate of academic medicine and biomedical research, an attitude that wore thin on Capitol Hill over the years. Petersdorf, on the other hand, has sought to reopen channels long corroded by Cooper's “we know best” attitude. As a consequence, the association's relations with Congress have improved immeasurably in the past eighteen months. For example, two key Democratic legislators—Henry A. Waxman and David Obey—with whom the AAMC had cool relations during Cooper's reign, recently addressed separate meetings of the AAMC's board. Petersdorf travels a lot, devoting greater attention to the views of the AAMC's disparate constituency of medical school deans, teaching hospital chieftains, and academic department chairs. He also is placing a renewed emphasis at the association on encouraging medical schools to strengthen their efforts to enroll minorities.