So, without commenting on the possibility of a future Mason medical school and teaching hospital, I think there is a clear need at Krasnow for accessibility to clinical materials and databases in research. Currently the mechanisms aren’t there. Or to put it more generously, they are evolving slowly. From my standpoint, it should be a priority of the Institute to gain access to, and the ability to run, clinical trials–and beyond that–we need to figure out ways to share in ownership of the data from those trials, and then to re-use that data in new basic research.
Secondly…it seems to me that we need a way to hire clinical faculty (as distinct from instructional faculty) and then allow them to see patients, as a way of supporting their salaries. Currently Mason only has the instructional- and research-faculty models. We need to now add to that, at least at Krasnow, so that clinical scientists working on cognition, can be part of the community, while not having to give up their clinical sources of income.
Discoverers and Discoveries 