N EVERY ERA, the role of the physician reflects the existing structure and the technical means available for medical care. The image of the practitioner of medicine is, thus, continuously modified by the endless changes in society and in science. In turn, the prevailing image of the physician ultimately determines the content and orientation of medical education. Periodic review and analysis of the evolving and technical scene is essential, therefore, to close the gap between the newer demands upon the physician and the older concepts of his training. The past few decades have brought especially swift and profound alterations in our population patterns, economic structure, and forms. At the same time, tumultuous developments in the organization and financing of medical care have remade the doctor's job. Inevitably, medical education must reflect the changing image of the ideal physician. The early American stereotype of the kindly, cluttered, little-black-bag practitioner-essentially the clinician-has merged with the more recent figure of the learned, precise, white-coated specialist-basically the laboratory scientist. Both reflect the dominant and technical conditions of their times, and do comprise the two currently acknowledged facets of the physician's role. Recent patterns of and medical change, however, suggest that a third component to the image of the ideal physician is slowly emerging and must eventually be incorporated into the content and direction of medical education. This figure, which Sigerist has called the social physician,1 is already far busier on the medical scene than generally is realized. Since developments in California are dramatically illustrative, a review of major trends which relate to medical care in this state might provide a useful basis for discussion of the implications for the training of future physicians.