Analysis of a medical internship.

Considerable discussion concerning the fate of the internship within the postgraduate period of physicians' training has taken place. Some specialty boards have eliminated the requirement of a free-standing internship. However, no replicable study findings defining exactly what an intern does have been reported in the literature. By analyzing the patient experiences that a straight medical intern encountered, the authors of this paper illustrate what many persons have previously said: the traditional internship is unrealistic with respect to the practice of medicine. The intern described here assumed care for acutely ill persons to the exclusion of all other responsibilities. The importance of objective and reproducible record-keeping is emphasized for both established and newly created programs in the primary care specialties.