The Neurosurgeon as Clinician-Scientist: The Fundamentals

摘要

We live in an era of specialization, but specialization can be overdone and there is no inherent reason why the qualities of investigator, teacher, and practitioner should not go hand in hand, be represented in a single individual, and he be none the worse for the mixture.Harvey Gushing, Consecratio Medici 1928Within neurosurgery, a number of forces are conspiring to make the surgeon-scientist an endangered species. Changes in academic medical centers are impacting medical student and resident education, specialized clinical care, and basic science research in such a way as to undermine the successful nurturing of physician-scientists. Many in the neurosurgery community have even wondered aloud why residents should be trained in research at all. We feel this is a perilous road, and will show why neurosurgeons must do research. We conclude with some suggestions about how residency training and post-residency practice might be restructured to achieve this goal in a meaningful way.