The odyssey and outlook of graduate medical education.

The healthcare needs of our society are changing from hospital-based, disease-oriented services to community-based, prevention-oriented primary care. Medical educators must prepare the next generation of physicians for this transformation. Allopathic academic medical centers tend to be infatuated with technology, while osteopathic medicine always has been more oriented toward primary care. Osteopathic medicine is therefore in a better position to adjust its graduate medical education to meet society's need for primary physicians. Osteopathic medicine has a golden opportunity to create a new type of residency that will produce a genuine primary physician and give allopathic medicine a model to emulate.