For those who wish to combine clinical practice with research, education and international travel, clinical academic medicine offers exciting prospects. Clinical academics make up five to ten per cent of the medical workforce. Most are university employees but, in addition to academic activities, they have honorary contracts with the NHS and spend about half of their week as practising doctors. Clinical academics are responsible for the undergraduate curriculum, inspiring and educating the next generation, and they contribute substantially to postgraduate medical training. Importantly, clinical academics play a leading role in basic, translational and clinical research, bridging between bench and bedside and providing a key interface with Industry and policy-makers.

The current approach to clinical academic training arose from the 2005 Report of the Academic Careers Sub-Committee of Modernising Medical Careers and the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, chaired by Sir Mark Walport. However, it should be emphasised that there is flexibility to allow movement into academic training programmes at all levels and that there are differences in detail between the four countries of the UK.

An academic attachment during the Foundation Years provides the opportunity to spend four months in an academic unit. The next step is to consider applying for an Academic Clinical Fellowship, a three year training position to acquire discipline-specific clinical skills and devote 25% of time to academic studies, to gather pilot data to apply for a Doctoral Training Fellowship. For those who wish to proceed along an academic route, there then follows three years of research training to obtain a PhD. Successful candidates will then move to a Clinical Lecturer post for about four years to complete clinical specialist requirements and undergo post-doctoral training. Next will usually be a five year Clinician Scientist appointment or Senior Lectureship (each with honorary consultant status). Once again, flexibility can be built into all of these positions, for example, by integrating training fellowships outside the UK or in collaboration with Industry.

Whilst many clinical academics will take the research route, others will focus on education, which has become increasingly important with a strengthened transition between undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.

You will be able to learn more about a career in academic medicine when you begin at medical school. Further details can be found by visiting the Academy of Medical Sciences  website, the clinical academia pages of this website and also the Clinical Academic Jobs website.