History
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The Association of Clinical Professors (ACPMed) was established in the UK by Dr Clive B Archer, M.D., Ph.D. in 2020 to encourage academically-driven doctors (qualified medical practitioners) who have chosen to practise predominantly as NHS clinicians (usually as Hospital Consultants) to continue to pursue research throughout their career, beyond the award of the higher degree of Doctor of Medicine (M.D. or D.M.). The ACPMed recognises the long-term research contribution made by these doctors, who will have continued to publish high quality peer-reviewed research papers.
Members of the Association, selected by objective criteria, will become Fellows of the Association of Clinical Professors of Medicine. Fellows are entitled to use the professional terms of ‘Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine (ACPMed)’ or, as a Full Clinical Professor of Medicine, ‘Clinical Professor of Medicine (ACPMed)’, and to use the post-nominal letters of FCPMed. Full Clinical Professors may choose to be addressed as Prof. or to retain the title of Dr., a common practice for Professors of Medicine outside the UK (e.g. in the USA).
Clinicians who have completed a clinically relevant Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. or D.Phil.) at a UK university can also apply for membership of the Association of Clinical Professors of Medicine. However, the ACPMed was set up as an association for those NHS clinicians who decided to dedicate most of their time directly to the care of their patients, and not to follow the parallel university clinicial academic career route of Senior Lecturer, Reader (sometimes referred to as Associate Professor), often leading to Professor (Full Professor).
The founding of the ACPMed occurred on a background of polarisation of clinical medicine and medical research in the UK during the previous 30 years, when there was effectively an ‘industrialisation’ of medical research, with an emphasis on large - scale, laboratory - based research, particularly molecular biology and genetics.
During this time, it was common for those in charge of research programmes to gain celebrity by promoting their research funding record, sometimes with less emphasis on what they had achieved in terms of outcomes in patient-care. In this respect, the system particularly rewarded those clinical academics who ran a financially successful research business, rather than encouraging the recognition of those doctors with a research-based M.D. or D.M., usually NHS Hospital Consultants, who dedicated most of their time directly to the care of their patients.
In most UK universities an M.D. or D.M. degree, based on the equivalent of two years of full-time research by medically qualified individuals, is considered to be an extremely prestigious higher degree (for example, being more exclusive in the annual degree ceremonies than a Ph.D. or D.Phil.). This fact is often not appreciated by young doctors, amidst the drive from competitive clinical academics to enlist research-minded doctors into their Ph.D. programmes.
These days an M.D. or D.M. usually comprises basic or applied science research with appropriate supervision. A Ph.D. is usually awarded to graduate students with varied first degrees (sometimes a Bachelors degree in Medicine), following three years of full-time, closely - supervised research, as part of an ongoing laboratory or departmental research programme.
Dr Clive B Archer, M.D. (Lond.), Ph.D.
Consultant Dermatologist & Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, &
King’s College London, UK
7th December 2020