Should Research be Made Compulsory in Medical School?

Abstract

Healthcare decision-making is mostly reliant on evidence–based medicine. Building and upgrading skills in scientific reasoning and thinking amongst medical students has now became an important part of medical education. But due to unforeseen reasons, medical students in developing countries have no or very little opportunities to develop research skills and become evidence based physician-scientist. Moreover, there is also an alarming decline in the current number of physician-scientists, which also threatens the progress of translational medicine in the upcoming era. The compulsion of research work in residency, has no doubt, increased the quantity, but the quality has subsided. The only way, to improve the quality of research and medical evidence based health care, is by inculcating various research programs in school and motivating the professors and subsequently, the medical students. Many schools around the world have started various research training programs and the results are astonishing. Hence we suggest, instead of making research compulsory, there should be a location and school based research program which can help in developing interest