The Medical Follow-up Agency The First Fifty Years, 1946-1996 (1999) / Chapter Skim
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1 Creating the Agency
1 Creating the Agency
Pages 1-7
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From page 1... ...
, acting through the Division of Medical Sciences of its National Research Council, had provided advice to the surgeons general of the Army and Navy on medical research and other matters related to wartime care. Between 1940 and 1946, advisory committees on war services held more than 700 meetings and 243 conferences and played an important role in shaping the nation's wartime medical policy.)
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From page 2... ...
Within three weeks, a preliminary conference took place in which the participants agreed that "strong efforts" should be made to continue the services of the National Research Council. An ensuing conference on postwar research held on April 18 at the National Academy of Sciences attracted 43 people, among them some of the nation' s leaders in medical administration and medical research.
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From page 3... ...
. He also saw a role for the National Research Council, which would appoint a committee to initiate and implement the project and, in DeBakey's words, "exercise a general supervisory function." This method of operation would continue the successful partnership between the NAS and the federal government that had been established during the war.
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From page 4... ...
With unanimity and with the Veterans Administration eager to have the National Research Council assume an advisory role in its postwar research program, the group passed the resolution immediately. Urging the nation to seize an "unparalleled opportunity," the group recommended that the NRC appoint a committee "to explore the most effective means by which a medical research program .
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From page 5... ...
Churchill explained the group's mission as preparing a report to the National Research Council that would serve as "a basis for action."7 To research and write the report, the committee relied on DeBakey and Gilbert W Beebe, who had been detailed to the NRC from the Army's Office of the Surgeon General.
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From page 6... ...
A program of clinical research that focused on the follow-up of veterans would, the report said, make "a priceless contribution to clinical medicine," "stimulate research in clinical and scientific medicine," and "improve the level of medical practice in both federal and other hospitals." The National Research Council was the ideal place from which to run such an effort. As a quasi-government agency, it provided "the logical mechanism by which the resources of scientific and clinical medicine [could]
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From page 7... ...
The Veterans Administration also sought a follow-up program for which the NRC would provide "a statistical service to investigate military records and help in the development of research problems." Pleased with this interest, DeBakey, Beebe, and the committee still saw the need for "broad financial participation" on the part of "all the interested federal medical agencies." They hoped that, at the least, the new entity would be headed by a "first-class medical executive" and would attract "medical analysts of the highest caliber." They wanted the new agency to be assured of five years of funding. Writing at a time when federal support for medical research through the National Institutes of Health had not yet become routine, they believed that this required access to nonfederal funds either as grants or "as guarantees against the failure of federal funds." The bottom-line recommendation was that the surgeons general and the VA's chief medical director should take steps that would enable the NRC's Division of Medical Sciences to establish "a continuing committee on clinical research and follow-up, with provision for administrative officers, professional and secretarial assistance .
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