The physician–scientist in Canadian psychiatry

Objective: The objective of the study was to determine whether physician–scientists in psychiatry in Canada are in decline, as was reported for medicine overall during the 1990s in the United States. Design: Federal databases were searched to study grant applications in the area of mental health submitted by physician–scientists compared with PhD–scientists for the period 1985–2001. A survey of Canadian Residency Training Program Directors was carried out for the graduating class of 2000. Setting: The Canadian publicly funded university system. Participants: Applicants to the Medical Research Council of Canada and its successor, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, for operating grant support and Residency Training Program Directors. Interventions: None. Outcome measures: Comparison over time between MD and PhD applicants regarding the number of grant applications submitted, the proportion of applications funded and the number of new applications submitted, with separation of applications submitted to a predominantly “biomedical” peer review committee and to a predominantly “clinical research” peer review committee. The survey obtained information about a number of variables