Residency education in the 1980's.

It appears that great changes in residency education will be made in the 1980's. These changes not only portend excitement and improvement, but also predicate troublesome and trying times. Medical schools must take a more active part in residency training and may ultimately take full responsibility. Educational institutions will be asked to guarantee the intellectual and technical competence of their postgraduate trainees by tightly structuring the educational effort, and this obligation rightfully inures to the medical school rather than the hospital. Training programs must develop methods of using all private populations for postgraduate education that will reach at least the level of that achieved with nonprivate patients. Training programs must utilize community hospitals, and the desirable components of academia must be introduced into these institutions. As difficult to achieve as it is simple to state, new sources of funding must be found for postgraduate education. Finally, there eventually may be a need to devise entirely new concepts of training based on career goals, and the 1980's will provide fertile ground for those faculties that wish to be imaginative and innovative.