In recognition of Ireland’s doctor scientists: Richard Costello, Christopher Thompson, Fidelma Dunne and Douglas Veale

Excerpt

A clinician scientist for the long haul is relatively unusual in medicine. The difficulty journal editors have in getting professionals to review papers which may take four or more hours is a fact of modern academic publishing. There is no financial incentive to participate. Professionalism as a subject is part of formal basic medical training in this era. This has replaced some of the clinical clerkship and apprenticeship time periods of pre-modern medical training. During my undergraduate period in UCD 1968–1974, ‘The Clinical Apprentice’ and ‘A Primer of Medicine’ were the prototype general textbooks for medical students of that era [1, 2]. The transformation in learning methods and evaluations can be gauged by my recent review [3]. …