The choice of a career. 9, Medical research as a career / by Sir Edward Mellanby.

  • Edward Mellanby
Date:
[1937?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The choice of a career. 9, Medical research as a career / by Sir Edward Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/4 (page 94)
    recent years are making access to medical research much more easy than was formerly the case, and successful efforts are being made to secure the future of those entering this field of study and even to help those who, having tried their hand, wish to return to ordinary medical work. There are undoubtedly many men with fine qualities and aptitude for research who do not take up this work seriously because they recognize that the successful investigator generally has to forego certain social advantages which can be easily procured in other branches of medicine. Discovery is a hard task-master, and it is usually necessary for those who take up the burden to cut themselves off from much social life and eschew many of those activities which are often regarded as essential for happiness. Up to a point research involves asceticism, but those who think that such asceticism means unhappiness are utterly wrong. There is a satisfaction and a sense of happiness associated with research, especially successful research, which I do not believe can be equalled in any other calling. Even apart from success, the thrills of joy which constantly recur, often and indeed generally quite unjustified, when a new observation is made and a new line of inquiry presents itself, are something which brighten the labour and life of the investigator to a degree which cannot be described. The life of one engaged in medical research is an enviable one and needs no sympathy from those who attach importance to ordinary standards of worldly success. (10) PSYCHIATRY. By Aubrey J. Lewis, M.D., M.R.C.P. Assistant Medical Officer, Maudsley Hospital. Psychiatry is becoming more and more a specialty in which it is perilous, if not ruinous, to be ignorant of what lies outside one’s strict field. Whatever the kind of psychiatric practice which the aspirant means to take up eventually, he will be wise to equip himself with an all-round knowledge, not only of mental disorder, but also of medicine in general, and neurology and clinical endo¬ crinology in particular. A house-appointment in a general hospital, with its experience of medical responsibility, will consequently be a necessary preliminary to psychiatry. Borne general practice may also be an asset, though if one proposes to make one’s career in a mental hospital service it is well not to delay one’s entry into it