Central Issues Relevant to Clinical Pharmaceutical Scientist Training Programs

Over the past two decades a number of papers, letters, and editorials have articulated the need to develop pharmaceutical clinical scientists.’-‘ The Millis Commission report played a critical role in bringing attention to this issue by advocating that pharmacy initiate programs directed at meeting this need, with the “clinical scientist” envisioned as being equally skilled and trained in science and practice.’ The authors of that report chose not to elaborate on either a formal definition of clinical scientists or the methods to develop such individuals. Nevertheless, the Millis Commission was clearly advocating the development of training programs which integrated science and the direct application of science to pharmacy problem solving. The value of this integration was recently echoed by reflecting on the words of Pasteur, who said, “there does not exist a category of science that one can designate as ‘applied science.’ There are science and the applications of science, bound together as the fruit to the tree which it bears.”’ Pharmacy is only beginning to appreciate the value of Pasteur’s words. After the Millis Commission report appeared, a number of schools of pharmacy independently initiated programs to develop pharmacy-based clinical researchers. The majority of these early programs were linked to post-Pharm.D. residency or fellowship programs of one to two years’ duration. Recently, fundamental differences between residency and fellowship programs have been recognized, and post-Pharm.D. fellowships have become the more acceptable method for preparing clinical researchers for pharmacy. This is analogous to the approach medicine has utilized for training clinical researchers. To date, a few