What methods are being used by the NIH to evaluate the status of clinical research?
Over the past four years, the NIH has been attempting to define the problems that afflict clinical research and to develop a program for alleviating them. We have also benefited from the views of other organizations and individuals. (For example, long-standing concerns about the number of individuals pursuing careers in clinical investigation prompted the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to initiate a study in 1991 to address career paths for clinical investigators, leading to their important and useful report, “Careers in Clinical Research: Obstacles and Opportunities” in 1994.) One of my first actions as NIH Director was to appoint Dr. Lawrence Shulman, a former NIH Institute Director, to serve as my emissary for clinical research and to seek the opinions and suggestions of those investigators who are actively engaged in clinical research. A panel headed by Dr. Gordon Williams from Harvard Medical School was convened to examine the review of applications for clinical research grants as pe
