Academic doctors warn of continuing crisis

Medical academic staff have warned of the danger to patient care of the continued underfunding in the NHS and the universities. At the conference of medical academic representatives last week the chairman of the BMA's Medical Academic Staff Committee, Dr Colin Smith, attacked the Department for Education's view that there was no correlation between funding levels and the quality of doctors produced. “Poorer resources mean poorer products, poorer research, poorer teaching, and poorer doctors.” There was now an acknowledgment that there was a crisis and the BMA would be giving evidence to the Dearing review on higher education and the Richards inquiry into disincentives to careers in academic medicine.

The Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals highlighted the crisis at a national press conference, pointing out that any further reduction would mean fewer staff, poorer undergraduate teaching, less research, fewer academics working in the NHS, and a greater workload for those remaining.

Despite the increasing pressure to do more and more research, there were fewer funds and grants—nearly three quarters of alpha rated grant applications were not funded. Dr Smith called it a tragedy that the Medical Research Council would no longer fund intercalated BSc degrees. So medical academic staff faced a “triple whammy”— reduced research funding, reduced teaching funding, and reduced clinical funding. “There is pain,” Dr Smith concluded, “and it will get worse.”