Who Should Provide Primary Health Care to Children: Pediatricians or Family Medicine Physicians?

Abstract

INTRODUCTION —Robert A. Hoekelman, MD This debate is one of a series entitled "Controversies in Child Health and Pediatric Practice." In 1978 and 1979, the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester conducted 12 such debates, which were published in book form in 1981.1 It is interesting that of these 12 controversies, not one has been resolved. That may prove to be the case for the controversy presented in this debate, "Who should provide primary health care to children: pediatricians or family medicine physicians?" Our guest speakers are Dr Michael Klein and Dr James E. Strain. Dr Klein is Professor of Family Medicine and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University School of Medicine. He is also Director of the Department of Family Medicine and of the Herzl Family Practice Center at the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. Dr Klein received his medical degree at Stanford University in 1966, and he was his class's recipient of the pediatric Harold K. Kaiser Award. Dr Klein served his internship at Bronx Municipal Hospital Center at Albert Einstein University and his pediatric residency at Montreal Children's Hospital. During his last year, he served as Senior Resident in Neonatology under Robert Usher at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He then became a fellow in biochemical genetics under Charles Scriver and the Chief Medical Resident at Montreal Children's Hospital under Mary Ellen Avery. In 1970, he came to Rochester as a Fellow in Ambulatory Pediatrics. Dr Klein's practice experience is extensive. He was the pediatric coordinator of the St Jacques Clinic in Montreal during the late 1960s and the medical director of the Westside Health Services in Rochester from 1971 to 1975, after which he assumed his current position.