ANATOMY OF THE ISSUE
The Physician Scholar: Measuring Twice, Cutting Once
By TPS EDITORS

Six months following its launch, The Physician Scholar celebrates new milestones and makes preparations for upcoming challenges and growth.

DEBATE
Increasing Medical School Enrollment to Combat Physician Shortage: Solution or Placebo?
By KEVIN CHRISTENSEN and NAOMI ODELL

In June 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced its recommendation that U.S. medical schools increase their enrollment by 30% by 2015 to redress the growing shortage of physicians. Reactions to the announcement were mixed. In the inaugural TPS debate, two students from Mayo Clinic College of Medice, an institution that recently increased its class size by approximately 20%, capture the widely diverging opinions on the matter.

HUMANITIES
Reflections from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Hospital
By MIKE LONG and DAVID NASH

The marginalization of reservation life has created a legacy of poverty and its concomitant ills—widespread alcoholism, endemic diabetes, short life expectancy, the list goes on. Ills aside, there are forces of change riding on tradition, pride, and optimism. Creighton University's Project CURA aims to provide health education and primary prevention for underserved and minority populations of Omaha and eastern Nebraska, among others. Two students reflect on their unique experience on the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.

POLICY
HEA and 20/220: Implications for the Classes of 2008 and 2009
By ANDREW LANDSTROM

Debt is a constant preoccupation of the medical student mind. In the fall of 2007, Congress eliminated the 20/220 pathway for economic hardship deferment with the passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. A strong grassroots effort on the part of physicians and residents eventually earned the pathway a reprieve. The narrow victory and continued tenuous future of the 20/220 pathway underscores a need for improved legislative literacy and advocacy within the medical student community.

EDUCATION
Residency Snapshot: Anesthesiology
By MELANIE BUSKIRK

Since the mid-1800’s and the transition from nitrous oxide and ether to the cocktail of highly specific drug therapies, the field of anesthesiology has evolved into a field of integral medical importance. Physicians and residents weigh in on how the specialty’s unique balance of physiology, risk, and procedure have propelled it to the realm of the most desirable residencies among medical students.