Abstract

To be both a clinician and a scientist—what is usually called a clinician scientist or clinical investigator—is easy neither from an ethical nor from a methodological standpoint. On the one hand, it requires care, cure of the patients, and good ethical practice. On the other, excellent skills in experimental design and data analysis are necessary. In addition, the correct choice of a disease as a model to be studied is very often hampered by the obvious ethical constraints of working with human beings, thus limiting the experimental armamentarium in the hands of the clinician scientist. Yet, Henry Beecher succeeded in both. He was an excellent clinician and scientist and put forward ideas and concepts that today...