Basic Mechanisms: Selective Perception and Alienation

IN ONE OF the discussion groups at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) 1962 Institute on "The Medical School and the Practicing Profession" a university surgeon complained bitterly about welfare patients being transferred from care at his hospital to a prepaid group practice program. He pointed out that such patients were essential to the teaching of surgery. When asked if his hospital was prepared to render as complete care as the prepaid group, he became indignant. His institution is world-renowned; society not only owes him the patients needed for teaching but also should so organize the care of these patients that the hospital takes responsibility only for their important lesions. There should be enough patients requiring a gastric resection each week to keep the surgical residents busy, but not more than that. When these same patients come back with varicose veins or hemorrhoids, he would have them referred to