[Physicians and scientific research: slight decline of the numbers of physicians with a doctoral degree].

Objective: To establish whether the number of physicians interested in a career in academia (i.e. research) is declining.

[The SGO Health Research Promotion Program. XIV. Final evaluation].

In the Netherlands, the SGO Health Research Promotion Programme was carried out from 1986 until 1997. The aim of the programme was to strengthen patient-oriented clinical research in specific fields of medicine. Some of the programme sections certainly produced a number of good publications in established national and international journals, but the programme advisory committee's main objective was to bring about a cultural change in the field of health care investigation: awareness of the principle that scientific and notably patient-centred investigation has a place in its own right in research, education and care.

[The SGO Health Research Promotion Program. XIII. Evaluation of the section 'Addiction Research'].

As a part of the SGO Health Research Promotion Programme a research programme on addiction research was realized. Aim of the programme was to strengthen and concentrate the Dutch research into addiction. Within the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research (AIAR), a structural collaboration between the Jellinek Treatment Centre for Addiction, the University of Amsterdam and the Academic Hospital of the University of Amsterdam, strategic research programmes were developed on the borderland of addiction and psychiatry, notably 'Clinical epidemiology addiction' and 'Developmental disorders, addiction and psychotraumas'.

[The Health Research Promotion program (SGO). XII. Evaluation of the section 'Health Care Research-experimental postgraduate training of general practitioners'].

As a part of the SGO Health Research Promotion Programme, programme section Health Care Research, an experimental core training was instituted for general practitioners. The aim of the training was to provide a small number of family physicians with clinical and medical expertise relevant to general practice that would enable them to play a leading role in the development of academic general practice medicine. Seven general physicians followed a self-composed training programme of 2 to 3 years, consisting of active participation in patient care in Dutch clinics and clinics in other countries.

[Stimulation Program Health Research. XI. Evaluation of the section 'Rehabilitation Medicine'].

As a part of the SGO Health Research Promotion Programme a research programme on rehabilitation medicine was realized. Aim of the programme was to strengthen clinical research in this field by training clinical researchers and improving clinical research infrastructure. Three clinical specialists have been trained to become senior clinical researchers by a 4-year training programme, concentrated within 2 clusters of a medical faculty, a university hospital and one or more centres for rehabilitation medicine.