The Article in Brief

This essay calls for active collaboration among generalist disciplines. The authors assert that a lack of collaboration between the academic generalist disciplines¯pediatrics, internal medicine, and family medicine—that form the source of the primary care physician workforce may be hampering each discipline’s efforts and futures because they are competing with each other for patients, trainees, and resources. Interspecialty collaboration, they suggest, is likely to lead to a greater focus on the critical role of primary care in the changing health care system to meet patient and population needs, rather than focusing on meeting the needs of physicians. Other advantages to collaboration include enhanced opportunities for trainees, more meaningful primary care research, powerful advocacy and improved patient care.