ABSTRACT
Who is involved? Academic doctors ore no more a separate species than academic medicine is divorced from clinical practice. Some of the most important discoveries in medicine hove come not from a university deportment but from on 'ordinary' district general hospital, where a doctor has hod the courage and determination to challenge dogma and try something new. Most clinical teaching is actually carried out by NHS consultants and junior staff, although true academics ploy a major role in arranging the undergraduate curricula and organizing the exams. By 'true academics' is meant doctors who work in a university deportment, the head of which is usually a professor. Medical schools in Britain will often hove more than one professor in the main disciplines such as medicine, surgery, pathology, paediatrics and so on. Some of these will occupy most of their time with research, but the majority ploy on active port in patient core within the university hospital.
