Family Health Science and the New Generalist Practitioner ROBERT C. LIKE, M.D., M.S.t MARY B. BRECKENRIDGE, Ph.D.f DAVID E. SWEE, M.D.t JOSEPH A. LIEBERMAN, III, M.D., M.P.H.* In this article, we respond to calls for educational reform in the health profes- sions by proposing that the discipline of Family Health Science should serve as the "basic science" of generalist practice, by which we mean such fields as family practice, general internal medicine, gen- eral pediatrics, family dentistry, family nursing, and family nutrition, to name a few. Specifically, we argue for the formal inclusion of the subject of family health science in health professions educational programs. First, we discuss the relevance of a family systems perspective for both clinical and public health practice. Sec- ond, we briefly review the nature and scope of Family Health Science research and scholarship. Third, we describe our innova- tive Family Health Track educational program in the New Jersey Graduate Program in Public Health, which is de- signed to train generalist health profession- als who can work at the interface between clinical practice, public health, and health care policy. Finally, we examine some of t Department of Family Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick NJ. Address reprint requests to Dr. Like at the Depart- ment of Family Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 1 Robert Wood Johnson Place, New Brunswick NJ 08903-0019. t Department of Family and Community Medicine, Medical Center of Delaware, Wilmington DE. the current proposals being made to "heal the schism" between medical and public health education (47), and suggest that the creation of Family Health Science Educa- tional Pathways may help both to bridge this gap and to produce the next generation of primary care physicians and generalist health care practitioners. Fam SystMed 11:149-161,1993 Just as Flexner identified a model and helped us get out of an ill-fitting box at the turn of the century[,] . . . health professional schools must now entertain a new vision of what they should be. This vision must include a richer array of academic disciplines, a more interac- tive relationship with the community and public, a more integrated connection to the practice side of the profession, a greater openness to education and work across the health professions and a greater willingness to experiment with alternative structures for organizing the work of education, research, and patient care. [38, p. 12] T HE Pew Health Professions Commis- sion has recently proposed an "action agenda" that would lead to the education of health care professionals who could help meet the "National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives" for the Year 2000 and beyond (16). The impor- tance of promoting primary care and 149 Family Systems Medicine, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1993 © FP, Inc. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.