Clinical Implications of the Virginia Study

I have been given the unique and most pleasant opportunity to discuss the clinical implications of the most massive study of patient problmes that I have ever seen in published form. In this study the health care problems that 88,000 patients presented to 118 family physicians over a period of two years were coded and analyzed. A total of 526,196 health care problems were included in this study. This is truly an immense task for which the authors of the study should receive the gratitude of all of us in family practice, whether we be practicing family physicians, faculty members in teaching programs, or researchers.