Campaign to revitalise academic medicine: Academic medicine needs teeth

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7452.1377-a

BMJ 2004;328:1377 (5 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7452.1377-a

Letter

Campaign to revitalise academic medicine

Academic medicine needs teeth

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Tugwell describes the campaign to revitalise academicmedicine.¹ Many doctors are not able to treat the increasinglycommon problems seen in primary care. These include depression,anxiety (especially social anxiety), alcohol excess, other drugproblems, chronic pain, and many other complex problems.

Health systems are good at managing the problems of the 1960sand the problems the current managers and teachers fear or perhapsalready have, but not the problems of young, poor, and disempoweredpeople. In some of these fields—particularly alcohol problemsand addiction to benzodiazepines and prescription opiates—doctorsare too often the problem.²

Health systems are not good at managingproblems of disempowerment

Credit: GILLES MINGASSON/GETTY IMAGES

Ten minute consultations in general practice, and stays of 2.4days in a hospital bed, hardly serve to promote the scienceand art of managing complex and often chronic problems well.This approach is designed to prop up a . . . [Full text of this article]

Rod MacQueen, clinical director

Drug and Alcohol Services, Mid Western Area Health Service, Bloomfield Hospital, Orange, NSW 2800, Australia rod.macqueen@mwahs.nsw.gov.au