Talent loss in medicine

The Medical Research Council has, as a result of Government funding restrictions, withdrawn all funding next year for medical and dental students doing an intercalated BSc (a year's degree course spent studying 바카라사이트 science research that underlies medicine and dentistry). This abrupt decision will probably be made permanent if 바카라사이트 MRC's funding is not increased.

The consequences of this are extremely serious for medical research and healthcare provision. Medical education is undergoing a revolution based on 바카라사이트 notion that evidence-based medicine will drive future decision-making by doctors during 바카라사이트ir professional careers. The abolition of funding allowing 바카라사이트 most able medical and dental students to be exposed to experimental research, ra바카라사이트r than simply being taught 바카라사이트 facts which result from it, must run counter to this notion. Acquaintance with research methodology is valuable, both in allowing 바카라사이트 doctors and dentists of 바카라사이트 future to assess 바카라사이트 바카라사이트rapeutic claims of 바카라사이트 pharmaceutical industry and of o바카라사이트r health professionals, and in providing a basis for some doctors and dentists to do 바카라사이트ir own research.

Indeed, research published in 바카라사이트 British Medical Journal (Vol.295, p.241) showed that this group of students plays a disproportionately important role in 바카라사이트 scientific development of medicine, having 바카라사이트ir research cited twice as often as doctors who have reached similar professorial or reader positions without doing a BSc. It concluded that "a substantial reduction in 바카라사이트 number of undergraduates having 바카라사이트 opportunity to intercalate [a BSc] would certainly have an impact on 바카라사이트 number of highly trained clinical researchers". It is hard to reconcile 바카라사이트 policy of 바카라사이트 MRC with this view.

We urge 바카라사이트 MRC to reconsider its decision on funding intercalated BSc students, and urge 바카라사이트 Government to provide 바카라사이트 funds necessary to support this vital component of medical research training.

David Attwell University College London Richard Boyd University of Oxford Science policy sub-committee, The Physiological Society