Article
Lost in Translation: Linking Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice at the National Institutes of Health, 1977 to 2013
Annals of Internal Medicine
(2018)
Abstract
This article examines the history and effect of the Consensus Development Program (CDP) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Introduced at a time when the relationship between the U.S. public and the medical profession was at a nadir, the CDP frequently placed the NIH in the middle of broader debates in medical practice and health policy during the last quarter of the 20th century. Drawing on published and archival sources, this paper sheds light on the challenges associated with collecting, assessing, and communicating evidence to medical professionals and convincing them to act on it in the name of improved health care. Administrators at the NIH sought a middle ground between changing medical practice and respecting professional autonomy, with varying degrees of success. This debate has continued implications today as tensions persist between scientific guidelines and the clinical medicine practiced by physicians and expected by patients.
Disciplines
Publication Date
March 20, 2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7326/M17-2418
Citation Information
Todd M. Olszewski. "Lost in Translation: Linking Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice at the National Institutes of Health, 1977 to 2013" Annals of Internal Medicine Vol. 168 Iss. 6 (2018) p. 431 - 435 ISSN: 0003-4819 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/todd_olszewski/3/