An osteopathic prescription for medical education reform: Part 2. Specialty mix and community integration

Calls for medical education reform focus on four major criticisms directed at curricular content and context, infrastructure fragmentation, specialty mix, and the lack of integration with community and public health. In the previous article in this two-part series, authors from the osteopathic medical education community focused on uniquely osteopathic reforms for the curriculum and the fragmented educational system. That article documented the leadership position of osteopathic medical education in implementing reforms with respect to these two criticisms. The authors of this second article tackle the osteopathic contributions to workforce issues related to the generalist-to-specialist imbalance, the opportunities to move from a community-based profession to a profession accountable for community health, and the potential for technologic advances to aid in reform in all four areas under consideration in both articles. They conclude that the osteopathic medical profession can lead medical education reform in the United States with visionary leadership in place.