THIS paper deals with the physician-investigator as an endangered species and with the future of clinical research. Clinical research includes the wide range of activities extending from epidemiology to studies of patients, to laboratory studies of specimens and tissues. Clinical research is usually conducted by physician-investigators working in a clinical department of a medical school or in a clinical division of an institute. An increasing number of Ph.D.'s are also engaging in clinical research, but this paper will be largely devoted to the physician-investigator.

For several years there has been a declining interest in biomedical research on the part of . . .