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Science 15 January 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5400, pp. 331 - 332
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5400.331
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Policy Forum

MEDICINE:
Physician-Scientists--Endangered and Essential

Leon E. Rosenberg

If the country's medical research enterprise is to make the contributions it is poised to deliver, the progressive, dangerous decline in the number of physician-scientists must be reversed. This decline--most pronounced among trainees and young investigators--has resulted from: societal pressures toward careers in primary care; economic disincentives, a shift in funding priorities; and the growth of managed care. Because physician-scientists are indispensable participants in the bi-directional flow of information from bedside to laboratory, and because no single agency can correct this problem alone, a major national effort--catalyzed by federal legislation-is recommended: to establish a climate in academia conducive to creating physician-scientists; to set up a network of clinical research units; to enlist the support of foundations, biopharmaceutical companies and managed care entities, as well as government and academia; and to set up a national database of physicians scientists.

The author is in the Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. E-mail: lrosenberg{at}molbio.princeton.edu

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