The number of physician-scientists in training decreased below the recommended level in 1976. Reasons young doctors are not attracted to research training and why these academic physicians are needed are discussed. The demise of the academic medical community will begin an ice age in American medicine. (SR)

Congress has preserved the jobs of the relatively well-off but ravaged the livelihoods of some of the most disadvantaged workers. It should be required that all sizable economic policies be accompanied by job impact statements, which would estimate which groups, and in what likely numbers, would suffer from specific Congressional proposals. (RM)

The right of terminally ill patients to decide whether they want to be kept alive by extraordinary means is discussed. Efforts of the Society for the Right to Die, including the living will, are described. (RM)

Many factors, such as extreme economic pressures, greed, cut-throat competition, narrowing of lawyer's education, lawyer hucksterism, and floods of new lawyers, have caused the dreary metamorphosis of the American legal profession to a business. The objective of today's large law firm is essentially to make money. Changes are needed. (RM)

The United States needs a foreign policy and a defense strategy that combine to make clear to friends and foe alike, and to U.S. citizens, what America's vital interests are in the world. There needs to be a consistency between words and actions. (RM)

Despite the possibility that efforts to prevent an arms race in space between the United States and the Soviet Union might fail, a serious attempt should be made to develop an arms control agreement because of the great risks of war in space and the expense of developing new weapons. (IS)