Mediterranean Journal Of Pharmacy And Pharmaceutical Sciences

Medical research: a general perspective

Authors Details :
Dhastagir S. Sheriff

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Medical research is defined as "all scholarly activities that deal with any of the areas of studies being conducted in the pre, para, and clinical areas being taught in a medical school". Such a definition is somewhat arbitrary, as medical research covers a much larger field and ultimately affects every individual. The results of research activities are directly translated into social action, such as pollution control, vaccinations, mass fluoridation and nutritional improvements. The eradication of diseases like smallpox, poliomyelitis and plague, the decline in the death rate from infectious and cardiovascular diseases, and the diagnosis of genetic disorders are some examples of how medical research helps to provide improved health care. Thus, the wealth of medical knowledge that grows through the process of discovery and research development becomes part of daily living. The aim of scientific research is always to extend the frontiers of knowledge and to discover rational correlations and principles [1, 2]. Medical research can be divided into biomedical (basic medical), clinical, and health science research. The areas overlap each other and health science research has a component of social research. Experimental research covers areas such as physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology and pathology and is relatively easy to conduct. If adequate financial support is obtained, the necessary infrastructure for laboratory research could be built and experimental animals maintained in an animal house. For clinical research, the patients with a particular disease are the direct object of study. This type of research involves dealing with the clinical picture, diagnosis, therapy and prognosis of the disease. Dealing with human beings requires stringent regulations and precautions to be observed. It requires setting up a research team in the hospital to monitor and chart out guidelines involving the ethical dimension of the problem to be studied and maintain a systematic medical recording system. Moreover, it is through a prolonged study of a large number of cases of the same disease that clinical research learns to predict the likely prognosis and judge the efficacy of the treatment. This type of research activity has limitations in the form of having a restricted number of cases of the disease under investigation, a need to update one's knowledge concerning laboratory techniques from which he obtains his 'cues', and the longer time interval required to complete the work. Health science research is a recent development of medical research due to the demands placed on many health services. More often basic medical and clinical research go hand in hand and are inseparable. Furthermore, clinical research workers often conduct studies on experimental animals, due to either the limited number of human cases or for ethical considerations.