Retraining physicians for primary care. A study of physician perspectives and program development.

Objective: To determine the number and kinds of programs that medical schools and managed care organizations offer or plan to offer to retrain physician specialists to practice primary care medicine and to discover physicians' attitudes toward such retraining.

Design: A survey was mailed in 1994 to all 126 medical schools and the 19 largest US managed care organizations to collect detailed information about existing and potential retraining programs. Physicians' attitudes toward retraining were elicited from participants in 3 geographically diverse focus groups.

Gastroenterology workforce modeling.

Objective: To examine the current supply and distribution of gastroenterologists and project future supply under various scenarios to provide a paradigm for workforce reform.

Design: An analysis of current practices and distribution of gastroenterologists and a demographic model, using the 1992 gastroenterology workforce as a baseline.

Main Outcome Measure: Comparison of current supply, distribution, and practice profiles with past data and future projections, using analyses of data from the 1993 Area Resource File, 1992 Medicare Part B file, age- and sex-specific death and retirement rates from the Bureau of Health Professions, managed care staffing patterns, the National Survey of Internal Medicine Manpower, and the Bureau of the Census.

Protein A as an immunoadsorbent in radioimmunoassay: usefulness in a rapid assay for urinary luteinizing hormone.

A staphylococcal cell wall protein, designated protein A, is known specifically and rapidly to bind to immunoglobulin G. We have utilized this protein as an immunoadsorbent to separate antigen-antibody complexes from free antigen in a rapid 6-hour radioimmunoassay for urinary human luteinizing hormone (hLH). We have further documented the efficacy of this system and the optimal conditions for this assay.