Self-evaluation and self-improvement have always been, and I hope always will be, an integral part of medicine and of the medical profession. We may well be proud of those men who in 1847 issued the call for an organizing meeting of what became the American Medical Association and stated in the first sentence, "It is believed that a National Convention would be conducive to the elevation of the standard of medical education in the United States." From that day the medical profession through various groups has concerned itself with improving medical education and medical care so that mankind might benefit. With this viewpoint medicine may qualify as a profession in the fullest sense of Judge Pound, "A profession is an organized calling in which men pursue a learned art and are united in the pursuit of it as a public service—no less a public service because they make a livelihood