Abstract
Overview: Thirty years ago, occupational medicine was one of the smallest of all the
medical specialties, ignored by most physicians and medical schools. Occupational
physicians were more likely to have entered the field through career transition than
by residency training. In 1970, governmental agencies sought to transform occupational
medicine into a major clinical specialty. Influential groups projected a need for
large numbers of physicians in the field. Residency training was expanded, as were
other teaching programs. However, industry and its workers’ compensation insurance
partners were not widely included in these plans. For that reason, among others, many
physicians entering the field met with disappointment. About half the corporate positions
for occupational physicians have disappeared in the last decade. Private practice
opportunities turned out to be much more limited than planners had anticipated. Attempts
to bring occupational medicine into the curriculum of the medical schools failed.
Many of the residency programs that had been created are now closing. The proposal
that occupational medicine create a joint specialty with environmental medicine is
not widely accepted by the rest of medicine. Because so few physicians obtain board
certification, it appears that the specialty of occupational medicine is returning
to its former obscurity.
Keywords
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© 2002 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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- PreviewWith due respect to Dr. LaDou,1 whom we greatly admire, we do not recognize our present specialty in his description. His argument against the specialty may have applied 10 or 20 years ago but not now. Dr. LaDou leaves the impression that occupational medicine is adrift. This is not so. Occupational medicine has been moving ahead with success that would have seemed quite improbable just a few years ago.2 The leadership of the field, including the current leaders of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), have been listening, responding, and acting.
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