Campaign to revitalise academic medicine: Funding needs to be on the discussion table

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7452.1376-b

BMJ 2004;328:1376 (5 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7452.1376-b

Letter

Campaign to revitalise academic medicine

Funding needs to be on the discussion table

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

EDITOR—I was disappointed at the statement in Tugwell'seditorial on the campaign to revitalise academic medicine thatdeals with how to tackle current failures.¹ He mentions workingwithin current economic constraints and giving preference tostrategies that call for no additional funding.

A false entrepreneurial approach, in which the output of healthcare and medical science is measured in monetary units drivenby immediate clinical productivity, could be argued as the causeof many of the problems of academic medicine. It has divertedthe efforts of faculty members away from research and teachingand weakened their capacity to continue delivering them withhigh quality. I call this approach false entrepreneurial becauseit ignores the benefits to society that accrue from the trainingand successful careers of the "endangered species" of doctorscientists.

If society agrees that medical progress is to its benefit, themechanisms for the funding of . . . [Full text of this article]

Fernando Elijovich, fellow

American Heart Association, Center for Hypertension and Cardiovascular Medicine, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY 10021, USA felijovich@lenoxhill.net