BMJ  2004;328:45 (3 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7430.45

Letter

Academic medicine: time for reinvention

Wholesale review of research and teaching is required

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The BMJ of 1 November and Clark and Smith in their editorial focus on the crisis in academic medicine with the tagline "Medicine's capacity to research, think, and teach is collapsing."¹ I do not disagree, but I am concerned that all of the articles predominantly emphasise research and those who are employed as medical academics.

To focus mainly on those with a formal academic contract of employment and particularly on those who do substantive research is to look at only part of the problem.

Many consultants and others employed by the NHS have important teaching and research responsibilities, and clinical teaching is often delivered largely by "non-academics." An assumption prevails that these areas are largely the province of medical academics, and the BMJ seems to be perpetuating this view. Good research and good teaching are somehow assumed to go together, when that is not necessarily the case. Neither . . . [Full text of this article]

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Roodlands Hospital, Haddington EH41 3PF Lewis.Morrison@lpct.scot.nhs.uk

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