BEFORE looking into the future or before being prescriptive, which implies laying down a guide or direction or a rule of action, I think I first should attempt to identify our current problems. Frankly, I have found this difficult since my usual source of information, the literature, is remarkably barren on the subject of dermatology residency programs, except for the statistical information which is supplied annually in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The number of outpatients and inpatients seen annually is truly staggering; so evidently a lack of patients is not one of our problems. With our expanding population, it is most unlikely that a shortage of patients with skin disease will present a problem in the future, despite radical socioeconomic rearrangements in the delivery of health services. At the present time we do not lack qualified residents since few vacancies exist in approved programs. The number of