Five years ago, I came across an intriguing editorial in a prestigious medical journal. The title was short, blunt and appalling. It left me in shock but also with the desire to prove it wrong, to challenge its assertion. It read: “Doctors are not scientists”. At the time, I was still an undergraduate in biology, revelling in the wonders of the natural world. Despite a strong pull towards evolutionary biology, I decided instead to pursue medicine, a field that I felt combined scientific method with human contact.

Throughout medical school, I tried to reconcile the seemingly subjective practices of medicine with the scrupulous objectivity of basic science. The outside world would have me believe that medicine was more of an art than a science. But in the hospital, I encountered doctors who worked as scientists do, with knowledge and guidelines amassed from rigorous peer-reviewed research. This, I came to learn, was the new age of clinical practice — the age of evidence-based medicine. It was a revelation to me: medicine was indeed a science and I, as a physician, was also a scientist. I pursued medical research in the hope of making a contribution.

Today, I'm a postdoc in the field of infectious diseases. My mentor and I have been awarded a substantial grant by the US National Institutes of Health to pursue a clinical trial on how to treat alcohol dependence in HIV-positive prisoners — it's a huge project. With a medical residency still a possibility, the question is: should I stay in medical research or move back to clinical medicine? Regardless, as a scientist with first-hand experience in gathering medical evidence, I know now that the title that shocked me half a decade ago is nonsense.