Clinical Research: Why Physicians Participate
For the last 150 years almost everywhere around the world, death rates have declined, and life expectancy has increased.
One significant reason for this is the development of medical and applied sciences. We have developed ways to detect, diagnose and treat disease.
Have you ever considered how this has been accomplished? What are the processes behind developing ways to detect, diagnose and successfully treat illness?
In this article we discuss clinical research and why the Physicians at the Banff Sport Medicine Clinic participate in it.
What is clinical research?
Clinical research is a scientific process that methodically and thoroughly investigates people, samples (e.g. Tissue) and/or patient data to discover methods of detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.
The ultimate goal of clinical research is to understand human disease and conditions to improve human health and patient care.
A closely related term that is sometimes confused with clinical research, is a clinical trial. A clinical trial forms a part of clinical research where a medicine (drug) or treatment developed through research is tested for side effects and effectiveness. This is the last stage of clinical research, which includes several phases.
— Learn more about our current research projects —
Why do the Physicians at Banff Sport Medicine participate in clinical research?
While committing to participate in clinical research is time and cost intensive, the physicians at Banff Sport Medicine (BSM) understand its value to their practice and patients.
Clinical research is key to advancing medical knowledge and it forms the cornerstone of evidence-based medicine applied at BSM. Being intimately involved in clinical research also means that new and beneficial therapies or techniques can be rapidly implemented in the clinic to improve patient care.
The Physician-Researchers at BSM volunteer their time with the Banff Sport Medicine Foundation to participate in, and lead, clinical research trials. Together, the team at BSM and BSMF also participate in clinical trails run by other research centres by recruiting suitable patients.
Watch our short clips below to hear why Dr. Heard, Dr. Kopka, and Dr. Buchko participate in clinical research.
— Learn more about the research interests of the BSM team —
Expert Contributor
This article was, in part, contributed by Dr. Ashutosh Vaidya, MSc, MD, PMP
