Translation of clinical research into practice: defining the clinician scientist

Family medicine has evolved into a specialty deeply rooted in clinical service. Because of high demands for clinical practice productivity, family physicians have drifted away from participation in scientific inquiry. There is even an effort in some institutions to reinvent family medicine as a community-based ambulatory specialty, resulting in a further "disconnect" between research and family physicians. A new movement for the efficient translation of laboratory science into clinical applications in the community supports the need for trained community-based clinician scientists. This translational science seeks to take the findings from bench research and clinical trials and study their introduction and dissemination into community-based clinical practice. There is an opportunity for family physicians to become involved in translational research. But, to develop a cadre of translational researchers within the family medicine community, education programs need to train and develop those researchers. Residency education may be an ideal time to begin that training and development.