Not one academy but two

BMJ 1998;316:565-566 ( 21 February )

Editorials

Not one academy but two

The new one should focus on fixing academic medicine

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Everybody in Britain should be grateful if the Academy of Medical Sciences that was launched this week can preserve and promoteacademic medicine $---$ for it approaches a parlous state. But we don'tneed yet another body of old men with chains around their necksthat dines, processes, and professes and offers a further sourceof advice to government that it can take or leave to suit itsown ends. The academy must target its efforts and aim to be effectivenot grand.

A Martian $---$ or even an American $---$ might be surprised that after 50 years of unresolved debate about the need for an academy ofmedicine Britain suddenly has not one but two. The cognoscentiwill understand well the difference between the Academy of MedicalRoyal Colleges and the Academy of Medical Sciences, but few ordinarydoctors and almost no members of the public will. Medical studentsunderstandably go blank when . . . [Full text of this article]