From: fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk)
Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.med
Subject: Re: Medics as scientists ?
Date: 31 Aug 92 15:07:46 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department University of Rochester

In article <1992Aug28.202346.10727@maths.tcd.ie> arora@maths.tcd.ie (Ashish Arora) writes:
>	Do you find that good doctors (medical doctors) make good researchers,
>or is it the case that good doctors and good researchers are mutually
>exclusive groups?
>	Only comments please -- no flaming.

Neither assertion is true.

1) As someone else has pointed out, many fine researchers started out
with MDs.  Alexander Fleming, for one.  (No, he didn't _just_ discover
penicillin, and the discovery of penicillin wasn't just a lucky accident.
Details on request.)

2) There are some excellent MD/PhD programs in the country; the intent is
to produce clinical researchers who aren't entirely dependent on MDs for
support during their research, and who have a trade in case research doesn't
work out for them.  I must say, though, that the MD/PhD students I knew
worked their butts off for several years: Cornell Med. Center clinical
rotations alternating with lab stints at Rockefeller U. as they try to
clean up that last experiment in their dissertation.

3) On the other hand, MD researchers seem to me to be overrepresented
among the glory hogs, and to be involved in more than their share of
dishonesty cases.  Since I haven't kept numbers, I can't justify this
statement as anything other than an impression, and MD researchers
certainly don't have a monopoly on dishonesty or self-aggrandization.

The MD examples I have in mind:

Glory hogs: Prusiner (prions; overstates his results) and Rosenbloom (You'd
think he'd discovered interleukin-2 and conjectured its application to cancer
on his own.)

Dishonesty: Darsee, others whose memory has faded.  Outright dishonesty
seems often to be connected with FDA-mandated safety and efficacy research.
One must remember that Imanishi-Kari has a PhD.

I used to have more examples, back a few years ago when I actually
thought about this for a while.  Unfortunately, I didn't commit the
list to paper.

4) I don't believe that an MD is good preparation for doing research.
Medicine is learned in the clinic; research is learned in the lab.
(Mathematical research, which is mostly what I do, is learned at the
blackboard.)

From my friends, and various books on the matter, I understand that medical
school consists of two years of memorizing masses of facts, followed by two
years of clinical observation and practice.  Internship, residency, etc.
are more clinical practice, _as is appropriate for people preparing to
treat human beings_.  I know a few residents and fellows who are doing some
research as part of their training; they all seem to treat this experience
as a sort of necessary resume line.  None of them have any illusions of
going into scientific research as a career, and none of them show any
interest in larger scientific issues.  This stands in striking contrast to
my friends in medically-related research (mostly molecular biology and
biochemistry), who can easily be drawn into hours of discussion of science,
what it is, how it is to be done, what their research is about, what my
research is about, what's happening in the larger scientific world, and
so on.  My back-door neighbor is a cardio-thoracic fellow at Strong
Memorial; he is doing something with dogs and cardiac bypass prostheses;
he'd much rather talk about golf.  Too bad; I hate golf.

My neighbor unwittingly taught me something rather interesting about the
surgical mind, by the way.  I had always figured that surgeons would be
good at 3-d visualization and manipulation.  This view was greatly upset
when Mike built a dog house, from a kit.  He bent about ten nails before
I pointed out that it was not a good idea to drive nails into an unsupported
2x4.  That learned, he made it through most of the project with only minor
coaching, until he got to the shingles.  At first he was pissed that they
were cut in these funny lengths...  Then I explained how they went together,
about ten times.  Finally he got the idea, and laid the first shingle on
the bottom course, whereupon he drove a nail through the _bottom_ half of
the shingle.  I explained why you don't do that, and he did fine until he
had to put on the ridge shingles, which took another ten minutes of
explaining.  This guy had better have his procedures memorized; I can't
imagine that he'd figure out anything three-dimensional on the fly.
-- 
Mark A. Fulk			University of Rochester
Computer Science Department	fulk@cs.rochester.edu