The number of physician-scientists, who have trained both as a physician and as a scientist to advance medicine as science, have been decreasing for the past decades. There have been multiple attempts to reverse the trend, but the number remains low. This paper proposes that there is a conceptual difference between the clinical medicine and basic medical science, causing a gap between the two, which could be an overlooked cause of the decline in the number of physician scientists. I draw upon my…
Read moreThe number of physician-scientists, who have trained both as a physician and as a scientist to advance medicine as science, have been decreasing for the past decades. There have been multiple attempts to reverse the trend, but the number remains low. This paper proposes that there is a conceptual difference between the clinical medicine and basic medical science, causing a gap between the two, which could be an overlooked cause of the decline in the number of physician scientists. I draw upon my own experience as a cardiologist-scientist and describe how clinical medicine instilled me with an objectivist epistemology stance, and how that clashed with the practice in biomedical research. Education in philosophy of science could help understand the gap and serve as a bridge for physician-scientists to overcome it, ultimately contributing to reverse the declining trend of physician-scientists.
