Redefining the research hospital

Introduction medicine was innovation, once. Yet the contemporary notion of medical research is remarkably narrow. While every clinician is encouraged to be aware of the latest advances, only a few are expected to contribute to them. Anyone may be a patient, yet clinical practice is determined by the minority included in research studies. The aim of medicine is to improve the lives of patients, yet knowledge of disease is arbitrarily prioritised as its primary means. The agents of medicine are clinicians, yet new interventions are mostly created by others, within corporate enterprise deliberately kept at arm’s length. We treat the specific, individual patient in front of us, now, yet most research is addressed to faceless, generic groups, to be realised deep into an ill-defined, hypothetical future.