An undergraduate program in family medicine in a setting that lacked a clinical base in that discipline

When a medical school rises anew, lacking encrusted traditions, many difficult situations lend themselves to naive-but n not therefore necessarily trivial-solutions. When Mayo Medical School began, the moral and pragmatic pressures to provide instruction in family medicine came together. To many observers, the whole concept had connotations of incredibility. How could a subspecialty medical institution like Mayo undertake to offer such instruction? Yet now, as we approach the enrollment of our fourth class, a Department of Family Medicine exists in Mayo Medical School. Every student in his or her sophomore year has 4 weeks of instruction in family medicine-2 weeks of relatively didactic introduction and 2 weeks of preceptorship. In addition, the junior and senior classes must elect a "track," and one of the seven available tracks is in family medicine. For the class of 1976, 12 of the 39 students are in the family medicine track and for the class of 1977, 15 of 39.