ABSTRACT
Sustaining a fulfilling private life is an immense problem for medical students. Medical training commonly undermines students' identity as adults, leading to feelings of infantilization, mortification, and dependency. The structure of medical education inundates students for more than ten years, and in this time enormous sociopsychological and developmental deficits are created in students' private and family lives. It is essential that the question be faced of how the higher ideals of medicine can be introduced and cultivated in medical training. Reforms in the structure of medical training would include the implementation of proposals designed to minimize the gross inundation of students' family and community lives with training. Training programs could be designed to support and strengthen students' identities tied to families, communities, and other institutions, and develop greater skills in actual practice and community service. Institutional rewards could be provided to faculty who are providing community services and who educate and organize communities to cope with health-related problems.
