Physicians remain public health agents.
But it is the cost of hospital care, where hundreds of thousands of dollars can be spent in a few days of surgical and intensive care procedures, that has become a significant new flashpoint for this division. But many feel that their allegiance to people trumps their responsibility to the people . They focus on the apparent needs of their individual patients and leave the concerns of the public to others. Among disciplines of clinical medicine, the relationship of genetic medicine and public health has been especially problematic and convoluted. Early in this century, human genetics was solely a public health discipline.