Forum on the Future of Academic Medicine: Session I--Setting the stage

In its first meeting, the Forum on the Future of Academic Medicine discussed the changes facing academic medicine in a competitive environment and at a time when medical schools and teaching hospitals are under pressure to conform to the market while preserving the traditional academic missions of teaching and research. The forum, created by the Association of American Medical Colleges and sponsored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will meet six times over the next two years to discuss a range of issues important to the success of academic medicine. Private-sector and academic members bring different perspectives to these discussions, which through their resource documents and meeting reports should stimulate thoughtful discussion throughout the academic medicine community. The forum members agreed that academic medicine has not been effective in defining its unique contributions to the health care system, but reached no consensus on how this deficit could best be remedied.