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To the Editor:
I find it extremely ironic that the article, "Why Medical Students Lose Interest in Family Medicine," in the July issue of FP Report was followed by the article, "Learners, Faculty Need Not Reinvent EBM Wheel, Say Educators." The first article confirms my observation that family medicine residents tend not to read the literature, are not up on the important latest studies and tend to take a cavalier approach to academics. In the second article, three family medicine educators promote this level of incompetence by encouraging family medicine residents and practicing physicians to eschew reading research studies and other important literature directly; instead, they encourage readers to depend on the simple opinions of other better-read physicians -- who have read summary reports and position stands.
I think the position of the second article confirms the first and is very revealing. Family medicine will never have the respect it should have until residency education steps up quite a few notches and demands better performance from the residents. This may, in fact, even require failing some residents.
David Weldy, M.D., Ph.D.
Ravenna, Ohio
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