Clinical research: any future?

Abstract

Laboratory-based clinical research is in a severe crisis in Canada. The reasons are many and range from the serious inadequacy in the financial remuneration of research fellows going to the USA. or Europe for further training to the overpowering trend to seek solutions to clinical problems directly at the molecular and cellular levels instead of the traditional physiopathological approach. The language of molecular biology and genetics, with its innumerable acronyms, is quite foreign to clinical medicine. In addition, molecular biology research leaves little time for clinical care of patients. Steps should be taken to reinvigorate laboratory-based clinical research since it is the key transfer point of basic advances to clinical care. Fellowships of the order of $50 to $60,000 to research fellows going to the United States or abroad should be provided. Close collaboration between PhD scientists and clinical scientists, as so successfully achieved at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal in the last 25 years, should be emphasized, and a greater percentage of funds from research agencies should be designated for the support of laboratory-based clinical research and for the training of clinical scientists.