INTRODUCTION
This annual report on graduate medical education in the United States for the 1988-1989 academic year contains data on the number of programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), by specialty and by region, and provides information on some characteristics of the persons in these programs.In 1988, the ACGME began to accredit, through the Residency Review Committees, programs in geriatrics, child neurology, and immunopathology. Recently, the special requirements for programs in critical care were approved. Review and accreditation of programs in critical care, hand surgery, musculoskeletal oncology, orthopedic sports medicine, and pediatric orthopedics have begun.
Resident and Related Terms
In the medical education community, the terms intern, resident, and fellow are used with widely different meanings. Variation in the use of these terms occurs from specialty to specialty, from institution to institution, and even from department to department within the same institution. At times,