Where Are the Clinical Role Models?

To the Editor.—Dr Greganti, in his otherwise excellent description of an often futile search for clinical role models (Where Are the Clinical Role Models?), ¹ omits mentioning a large and eager and, by major interest, eminently qualified reservoir of physicians by neglecting consideration of those of us who have chosen to devote ourselves to clinical medicine because we like to, rather than because we have to. While his suggestions regarding the appropriate recognition being given to academic faculty members with expertise in bedside teaching is certainly well taken, he completely neglected an excellent opportunity to suggest the important role and potential contribution of the private physician acting in his natural habitat, ie, his or her own private office. What better way to educate the impressionable medical student or resident who may "view ongoing patient care as below the intellect of a productive academician, or clinician" than to expose him