Behalf

“You see? Many clinical professors do very little clinical service nowadays – and they hardly ever teach either,” the man who used to have a moustache went on, “They put most of their time and effort on private patients, for which they pocket a good sum of money, and a portion of it is used to pay for the salary of one or more scientists to do the research on the professor’s behalf.”

“Oh…!” Some of us gasped. Well, to be honest, we know that much already, but it remains disturbing to have a senior member of the academic hierarchy saying all these openly.

“I must say the government policy is to some extend encouraging all these,” my mentor continued, “You know, competitive grants are more likely to be given to laboratory research – because the assessment panel is dominated by basic scientists. As a clinician, what is the easiest way to prepare a grant proposal – and, logically, to follow on – a research paper on basic science? The obvious answer is to find someone to write it for you. After all, unlike clinical professors, true basic scientists are not expensive to hire.”

We all nodded eagerly.

“The real problem is, since the papers are prepared by someone else, the clinical professor may know very little about what’s going on – actually they may not even understand what’s being written – even though their name is put down as the first or last author!”

I cannot agree more.

PS. I sudden realize for clinical academic staff who avoid service and teaching but focus on research may not be that bad – at least they know what their own research is all about.