A student's perspective on community medicine and the health crisis.

Community medicine is more difficult to teach and to learn than the traditional medical sciences. Teachers of community health have an interest in the rigors and theory of epidemiology and biostatistics, while most students plan a career in patient care. Abstractions and statistical data need not be presented unless it can be shown that these are the "physical findings" of a community and that they have value in the discovery of the etiology of disease, the prediction of risks, and the delivery of health care. Community medicine curricula must include experiential learning, with real patients and problems, in order to prove that health is affected by culture, politics, the environment, and individual behavior. If a student-physician's concern for community health is to be enduring, it must match in sophistication his skill in clinical medicine.