Abstract
If there is one activity that defines the modern university it is scholarship. Scholarship has been defined in different ways, but generally, it refers to the creation, organization, dissemination, and application of knowledge [1]. At least in the universities with which I have been affiliated (Columbia, UCSD, USCF, University of Michigan, and CWRU), scholarly activity has tended to be defined in terms of research. This is also true of Stanford as described in Donald Kennedy’s book Academic Duty [2]. Since these are all “research universities” that is not surprising. Nevertheless, I think that this is also true for academic medicine at large. In his groundbreaking book, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, Ernest Boyer noted that university reward structures did not match the full range of academic functions and proposed a more inclusive view of what it meant to be a scholar.” He argued that knowledge is acquired through research, through synthesis, through practice and through teaching [3]. He proposed four domains of scholarship: discovery, integration, application, and teaching, and that each receive academic recognition. Others have parsed things differently. [5, 6], My take on this is that in the end, they all involve creation of new knowledge, albeit of different types. The scholarship of discovery is most aligned with the traditional view of research as the creation of new knowledge. The scholar of integration involves synthesis of information, especially across disciplines and which in so doing creates knowledge. This is seen today, in the focus of the NIH on interdisciplinary research. The scholarship of application, which has also been termed the scholarship of engagement involves using disciplinary expertise to address problems, especially, though not exclusively, beyond the walls of the university. Here, identifying how problems can be solved in one particular venue constitutes a new finding. Similarly, the scholarship of teaching and learning involves systematic evaluation of teaching and learning such that findings can be shared. Among the characteristics of scholarship is it can be documented, peer reviewed, and replicated or elaborated [4, 8].
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
‘La Prisonnière’, the fifth volume of ‘Remembrance of Things Past’.
- 3.
For example, Weiser wrote of Oregon State University that “four forms of scholarship are described: discovery of new knowledge; development of new technologies, materials, and uses; integration of knowledge leading to new understanding; and artistry that creates new insights and interpretations.” What is particularly interesting to me is the statement that the University “recognizes that teaching, research, and extension are vital university activities-that are not scholarship in themselves, but that can each involve creative, communicated, peer-validated scholarship in any of its several forms (discovery, development, integration, artistry).” What kind of research would not be scholarly and still deserve the title of research? [4].
- 4.
https://commonfund.nih.gov/Interdisciplinary/overview. Accessed 7-22-21 and Mabry et al. [7]. Parenthetically, the distinction between multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary is the subject of a large growing literature.
- 5.
Horse-racing bet in which the first, second, and third place finishers are chosen in the correct order, but now applied more generally.
- 6.
I also had funding from the local Diabetes Association of Greater Cleveland.
- 7.
Part of the motivation is prestige; part and most of it is the fact that NIH grants come with substantial funds to cover indirect costs, i.e., costs of research not covered in the grant’s direct costs, e.g., cost of the facility, library, etc.; and it would be churlish of me not to admit that getting the NIH’s imprimatur is a statement that the research is worthwhile.
- 8.
There were guest speakers from the offices of the governor and one of Ohio’s senators. All honored faculty members received etched ice buckets (Medical Bulletin of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine 5(4): 1999/2000). I remember when i saw this. I recalled the year that I received the schools top teaching award—the Kaiser-Permanente Award for Excellence in Teaching. I was taken out to dinner to a very nice and expensive restaurant, but I was taken out by two leaders from Kaiser-Permanente Healthcare System, not the Dean or anyone from the medical school.
- 9.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/research. Accessed 6-17-20.
- 10.
45CFR46.102.
- 11.
I have contacted the Office of Human Research Protections a couple of times requesting a definition, but I never got a response, much less an answer.
- 12.
I think that this ambiguous definition contributes to the problem of whether some project or activity constitutes human subjects research, but more about institutional review boards in a later chapter. See: Kirsh et al. [9].
- 13.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/discover. Accessed 6-17-20.
- 14.
The philosophy of scientific discovery is an entire field in itself.
- 15.
- 16.
As a medical resident had seen cases of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in patients with lymphoma or who had been treated with high doses of glucocorticoids, both conditions of immunocompromise.
- 17.
Amazingly these reports were made the same day—June 5, 1981. https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline. Accessed 6-17-20.
- 18.
In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, Watson tells Sherlock Holmes: “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning, I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.” “Quite so,” responded Holmes. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear…”.
- 19.
Consider the resistance to the concept of the heliocentric solar system.
- 20.
Another topic that is related to discovery is creativity. McLeish makes the argument that creativity in science is very similar to the creativity in music and poetry [13].
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Aron, D.C. (2023). To Discover. In: An Insider’s Guide to Academic Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19535-8_9
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