BMJ  2004;328:46-47 (3 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7430.46-c

Letter

Academic medicine: time for reinvention

Hogwarts may be a useful analogy for improvement

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

EDITOR—Stewart discusses how to improve clinical research.¹ The Harry Potter books may help to understand clinical academics and clinicians and perhaps highlight areas for improvement.

Most clinicians are the Hagrids of the clinical world. They prefer to get on with the job and are usually good at it. They find it hard to deal with the often confusing language of research and harder still to apply it to their understaffed and underfunded services.

Clinical academics are the professors at Hogwarts. Professor Lucius is found mostly, but not exclusively, in many Mediterranean countries. This type of professor is likely to have obtained the position through political slyness or family ties but never because of the quality of research. He or she loves the power, the additional prestige, and the revenue that the title of professor brings.

Professor Gilderoy Lockhart has chosen an academic career for its ample scope for . . . [Full text of this article]

Centre for Metabolic Bone Disease, Hull HU3 2RW P.Albertazzi@hull.ac.uk

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