Stability of Specialty Preferences Among Medical School Graduates

Abstract

To the Editor.— In a recent article on stability of specialty preferences, Babbott et al 1 included within their definition of primary care the subspecialties of internal medicine and pediatrics. With this unconventional definition, the authors report that 47.5% of the male graduates and 55.7% of the female graduates planned to enter primary care specialties. It seems unjustified to count the subspecialties under primary care medicine. With this revision, fewer than 40% of our graduates will end up as generalists, a figure well below that endorsed by the academic establishment 15 years ago. It is not a salubrious picture.