The local clinical scientist: A bridge between science and practice.

The local clinical scientist brings the attitudes and knowledge base of the scientist to bear on the problems that must be addressed by the clinician in the consulting room. The problems of inadequate generalizability are reduced by a recognition of the value of local observations and local solutions to problems. However, these observations and solutions benefit by the scientific attitude of the clinician and are subjected to the same need for verifiability that greets all scientific enterprises. The clinical setting is viewed as analogous to a scientific laboratory, and, by doing so, the scientist-practitioner model is enacted.