To the Editor.— I would like to respond to an article inThe Journalby Milan Korcok entitled "Medical Education: Prosperitas Interrupta " (1983;249:12). Dr Korcok seems to lament that "teaching hospitals, faced with continuing cost constraints, might have to reduce the size of the residency programs." In my inaugural address as President of the American Medical Association in June 1970, I recommended that the four-year in-hospital residency might be improved by substituting at the end of a shortened in-hospital service a preceptorship with an approved practicing physician. My recommendation elicited considerable response—mostly unfavorable. Those who agreed with me did so by private communication. Within weeks, I was invited to the National Institutes of Health to an international symposium on graduate medical education. The attendees from the European countries did not initially withhold their criticism of my recommendations, but by the end of the seminar, as I stood my ground and