A report titled Clinical Academic Medicine: the Way Forward and issued on behalf of all the UK’s Medical Royal Colleges and the Academy of Medical Sciences, states that the lack of clinical academics is a threat to standards of patient care.
For many years there have been difficulties in recruiting and retaining clinical academics, and funding for academic posts has been reduced. The most recent survey shows that there has been a 23% reduction in junior academic staff in the past three years, at a time when medical student numbers were projected to rise by 40% up to 2005. If this situation continues, not only will there be fewer clinical academics to teach junior doctors, but the drop in capacity for medical research will affect the standard of patient care.
Professor Charles Pusey, chair of the Forum on Academic Medicine and Academic Registrar, Royal College of Physicians, said: “The UK has an enviable reputation for medical education, clinical research and delivery of patient care. This can only be sustained and improved if the key role of clinical academics is recognised and appropriately rewarded.”
