In 1986 the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) was asked to advise the Congress of the supply and distribution of physicians in the United States, current and future shortages or excesses of physicians by specialty, issues relating to foreign medical graduates, and other matters relating to the financing and structure of undergraduate and graduate medical education. In 1988, the COGME Subcommittee on Physician Manpower stated to the Congress that "there appears to be an impending oversupply of pediatricians at present,"1 and the Subcommittee undertook—before making its final report to the Congress—its own independent study on manpower needs for pediatrics and six other specialties.