Third-year residents nearing completion of their training and preparing to leave for independent practice often appear to experience anxieties that suggest a form of separation crisis. Their negative behavior may be a way of making the old milieu less welcoming and thus easier to leave. Advice for easing the transition is offered. (JMD)

This paper describes a method for defining the universe of competencies expected of a general internist. This was accomplished by defining the nature of the medical practice, describing the internal medicine content in terms of subspecialty divisions and general areas of competence, and defining a format for describing competencies. The format for…