




































Berkeley
Pharma Tech
Journal of Medicine

Correspondence: 
sydneyworrall@gmail.com

Keywords: 
Interdisciplinary 
research 
Clinical medicine 
Syndemics
Healthcare

Submitted: April 6, 2023 
Accepted: July 7, 2023
Published: December 30, 2023

Full Open Access

Creative Commons Attribution 
License 4.0

Abstract
Medicine has historically been built upon the discoveries of interdisciplinary research, 
yet modern clinical medicine has stagnated in its production of such research. This is 
despite multiple calls for interdisciplinary clinical medicine research from both 
inside and outside the discipline. Complex issues, such as those that physicians are 
recently facing, require complex solutions that cannot be achieved through the use of 
a single discipline. In order to promote interdisciplinary research, certain approaches 
need to change. Such changes include the reorganization of university department 
structures to prioritize interdisciplinary scholarship and create ‘translator’ positions 
to help bridge the knowledge gap between disciplines. This paper reviews how 
clinical medicine and interdisciplinary research are intertwined, assesses why 
there is a lack of interdisciplinary work within clinical medicine, and explores 
methods to encourage more collaboration between clinical medicine and other 
disciplines.

An Overview of Interdisciplinary 
Research and Clinical Medicine
By: Sydney M. Worrall



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 2 

1. Introduction

Interdisciplinarity refers to the combination of knowledge from many different 
specialties or disciplines.1 Despite interdisciplinarity having a commonly agreed 
upon meaning, interdisciplinary research is a term that is still being acutely 
defined. For this paper, the meaning of interdisciplinary research is taken from the 
Institute of Medicine, who defines it as a “mode of research by teams or 
individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, 
concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized 
knowledge, to advance fundamental concepts”.2 In short, it is a form of research 
that involves an integration of distinct disciplines. This differs from other forms of 
collaborative research, such as multidisciplinary work, because researchers 
in those projects “remain conceptually and methodologically anchored in their 
respective fields”.3 There is a distinct lack of integration between the fields 
in multidisciplinary research. Research, particularly science research, is becoming 
more and more interdisciplinary as time goes on4; yet clinical medicine is an outlier 
and strikingly uni-disciplinary.5 

2. Clinical Medicine and Interdisciplinary Research
2.1 Interdisciplinary Research 

As stated above, research in the fields of science is becoming more and more 
interdisciplinary, to the point where papers with a single author are becoming 
increasingly rare.4 That is not to say that science is only recently becoming 
interdisciplinary. Modern clinical medicine itself is built upon the discoveries from 
interdisciplinary problems. For example, radiotherapy is founded on the pioneering 
work of physicist and chemist, Marie Curie, and engineer and physicist, William 
Roentgen. The ground-breaking work of Franklin (chemist), Crick (physicist), 
Watson (biologist), and Wilkins (physicist) centered upon determining the 
structure of DNA is now secure in the public record.6 The trend of interdisciplinary 
discoveries fueling medicine stands the test of time. Recently, mathematical 
frameworks have been recognized as being a valuable asset to medicine, and has led 
to a ‘migration of mathematical physicists into medicine where their skills are being 
used to advance epidemiological modeling, develop novel clinical trials, and 
understand tumor dynamics’.6 Interdisciplinarity is so integral to medicine that 
within the last 35 years, 11 of the Nobel prize winners for medicine have had a 
background in fields such as chemistry, physics, or engineering.7



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 3 

While interdisciplinary research is important for medicine on a large scale, it is also 
integral to a patient to patient basis because clinical medicine is constantly facing 
and researching complex issues. Not all the issues that clinicians face are purely 
medical. When treating a patient, a clinician may have to factor in societal or 
environmental issues that are impacting the patients’ health. Complex problems, 
such as the ones clinicians face, are not amenable to single-discipline investigations. 
Discoveries are more likely to be found on the boundaries between fields.8 

2.2 Syndemics Theory 

Societal and environmental factors playing into patient health is not a new concept. 
A theory called syndemics, which has been steadily gaining traction since its original 
proposal in 1996, is a testament to the intersection between medical conditions and 
sociological, environmental, and political issues. Syndemics, in short, are 
synergistically interacting epidemics that occur in a particular context with shared 
drivers.9 The most researched and well-known example of syndemics is the SAVA 
model. It refers to the clustering of health and social crises such as substance abuse, 
violence, and AIDS into an interrelated complex.10 The SAVA syndemic takes what 
seem like three parallel epidemics occurring in a population and connects them into 
interdependent threats that cannot be wholly separated.10 Since these epidemics are 
interdependent, one cannot be solved without addressing and treating the others. 
Recently, the covid-19 pandemic has been the focus of syndemics, which is 
increasing attention of the theory in clinical medicine and global health.9 At its core, 
the syndemics theory is a call for interdisciplinarity for the sake of patient care. It 
states that you cannot treat a health epidemic without addressing the noxious social 
conditions that contribute to the severity of it. Medical field professionals cannot 
treat the complex issues involved in syndemics alone; the task involves the work of 
policymakers, sociologists, public health officials, and a myriad of professionals 
from other disciplines. 

While the syndemics theory is a staple in the medical anthropology and global health 
lexicon, it is not the only call for more interdisciplinary work coming from the field 
of clinical medicine. Clinicians are advocating for a change in treatment models for 
diagnoses such as musculoskeletal and cardiovascular conditions. Patients with 
cardiovascular disease often experience multimorbidity, meaning that they have two 
or more chronic medical conditions. These comorbidities cluster into five distinct 
patterns, each impacting patients’ quality of life and clinical outcomes differently.11 

Patients require specialized, individualized care depending on which cluster they fall 
into, as symptoms can be altered by the presence of multiple underlying medical 
conditions. For example, noncardiovascular comorbidities are associated with a 



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 4 

higher overall symptom burden and the display of more severe symptoms than what 
cardiovascular comorbidities would cause alone. In addition, cardiovascular 
comorbidities were more likely to be associated with pain and anxiety rather than 
symptoms of shortness of breath or fatigue.12 The current treatment models are not 
meeting individual patients’ needs due to the complex psychosocial and multi-
morbidity facets of the conditions.13,14 Clinicians and researchers are calling for more 
interdisciplinary research to help improve patient care for complex diagnoses. 

3. The lack of Interdisciplinary Research in Clinical 
Medicine 
3.1 Clinical Medicine 

Despite the fact that clinical medicine was founded on the discoveries of 
interdisciplinary research, and that there is a call from within the house of clinical 
medicine for more interdisciplinary research, there is shockingly little of it being 
produced. A citation-based analysis over the years of 2001-2010 found that clinical 
medicine is strongly uni-discipline, meaning clinical medicine papers rarely cite, and 
are rarely cited by other disciplines. This is the polar opposite of the health field, 
which is increasingly interdisciplinary.5 This implies that while the generalized field 
of health is pushing the boundaries of its discipline, clinical medicine is not. It also 
shows that there is more that can be done to promote interdisciplinary research 
within clinical medicine.6 

Since there is a historical precedent for interdisciplinary research in medicine, and 
an established need for it within clinical medicine, the question becomes why is 
there a lack of it being produced? Van Noorden, the author of the citation analysis 
from 2001-2010, proposes that clinical medicine is uni-disciplinary because it is a 
very specialized field of practice. The proposal bears some thought, as clinical 
medicine is indeed a specialized field with many niche sub-fields. However, it was 
not always this way. In 1518, when the Royal College of Physicians was founded, 
individual physicians 'often embodied interdisciplinarity’.6 The enormous advances 
in medicine are what led to this stratification of clinical medicine. Said stratification 
can be attributed to what researcher Zurubavel calls the “rigid mind”. This rigidity 
is part human nature, creating an identity involves “lumping supposedly 
homogenous clusters” together.15 The rigidity, however, is further cemented within 
academia due to the way “academic libraries, journals, curricula, etc. are 
organized”.15 This mental categorizing means the structure of academic scholarship 
is usually envisioned ‘in terms of well-defined, sharply delineated fields’ that are seen 
as insular entities separated by a large intellectual divide.16 This divide has even 
spread to fields that are closely related, such as the fields of the biomedical sciences 



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 5 

and clinical medicine; more than 50% of medical practitioners believe that research 
is only related to advancement of personal careers rather than patient care.17 The 
rigid delineation of fields of study discourages interdisciplinary work and inhibits 
creativity. 

3.2 SSH Study 

For example, a study interviewed 29 social scientists’ and humanities scholars (SSH), 
who were working in a medical research environment. The goal of the interviews 
was to gauge the integration of the scholars into the different research environments. 
18 out of 29 SSH scholars reported a partial adaptation in which they altered their 
research methods to fit into the medical research environment. 3 out of 29 ended up 
converting wholly to medical research due to the divide between disciplines. 
Another 3 reported alienation and felt marginalized from their peers within the 
field.18 One interviewee remarked that “I'm creating a new niche for myself, which 
is actually making me increasingly marginal in my department … I have fewer and 
fewer colleagues that I can discuss my ideas with. I'm increasingly becoming sort of 
alienated from my own environment”. The reward these scholars get for pursuing 
interdisciplinary research is alienation and isolation from their own fields. Their 
peers view the fields of social sciences/humanities and medical research as fields 
separated by ‘walls’, interviewee’s mentioned the separation of the fields were 
further pushed when publication of papers came into play. The scholars had the 
choice of either “watering down” their social theory analysis in order to publish their 
research in clinical journals or publish the work in social science journals and face a 
lack the recognition from their medical research environment.18 All of these facets 
lead to the aforementioned marginalization. 

3.3 Obstacles 

Rigid thinking is not the only factor inhibiting interdisciplinary research within the 
field of clinical medicine. There are more practical obstacles compared to 
philosophical hinderances. ‘The Challenges of Interdisciplinarity’ by Brewer19 
discusses such obstacles. Practical obstacles often stem from how different fields 
operate, as each discipline has differing frames of reference, methods and operations, 
and even ‘languages’ or terminology commonly used in them. Institutional 
workings also pose an impediment due to different funding priorities between 
disciplinary and interdisciplinary work. There are also professional obstacles 
concerning hiring, promotions, status and recognition. 19 Interdisciplinary work is 
often incredibly niche, and doesn’t fit into the standard assessments that can aid in 
decisions such as hiring and promotions. 



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 6 

Another possible reason why interdisciplinary research is scarce within the clinical 
medicine community is that it has a complicated relationship with scientific impact. 
A study that analyzed all the articles published in the Web of Science in 2000 found 
that articles with both the highest levels of interdisciplinarity and the lowest of 
interdisciplinarity had lower scientific impacts compared to articles in between 
those extremes.20 Finding the right balance between the two extremes can be an 
intimidating factor that scholars are hesitant to tackle. 

4. How to promote more Interdisciplinary Clinical Medicine
Research

4.1 Solutions 

Though there are obstacles that hinder interdisciplinary research within the field of 
clinical medicine, there are just as many possible solutions. Some that are grounded 
in research, and some that need to be tested further for viability. With part of the 
lack of interdisciplinarity in clinical medicine being tied back to Zerubavel’s rigid 
mind, a way to combat it is to promote what he calls a ‘flexible mind’.15 A flexible 
mind is one in which the mental map of academia still features specialty areas, yet 
not as discrete islands separated from one another by wide intellectual divides. 
Academic fields are seen as nebulous entities which lack sharp contours and are 
constantly changing their forms and melding into other intellectual nebulae.15 To 
promote this flexible mindset concerning academia, universities need to enact 
foundational changes to alter the organizational structure of departments and 
centers.21 Some universities are employing this strategy by modifying the traditional 
department structure in order to promote interdisciplinary research. This has been 
achieved by creating, promoting, differentiating, evolving, and consolidating 
departments and research centers.22,23 To assess the correlation between 
restructuring academic units and the promotion of interdisciplinary research, 
Leahey and Balinger conducted an analytical study that examined 9211 research 
centers and 12,323 departments across 156 universities. They found that 
universities that enact structural changes to manifest their commitment to 
interdisciplinary research produce more interdisciplinary scholarships. Not only 
that, but the universities with a greater structural commitment to interdisciplinary 
research were observed to have a higher level of scholarship productivity and NIH 
grant activity relative to institutions with less structural commitment.18 This model 
offers universities a way to adapt to the need for interdisciplinary areas without 



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 7 

demolishing traditional department structures, as no previously existing 
departments are eliminated.24-26 

4.2 Strategies 

As for strategies to specifically target clinical medicine, many potential strategies 
start in medical school. The general agreement is that “the solution lies in an 
approach early in a clinical education path that involves training medical students 
to become junior scientists”.27 The two main strategies involve either introducing 
research into medical studies at an early stage or introducing clinical rotations for 
basic researchers in Master or PhD programs. For example, the Berlin Brandenburg 
School for Regenerative Therapies (BRST) promotes interdisciplinarity by offering 
a “a three-track graduate system embracing clinical scientists as well as biologists and 
engineers. An essential feature of these tracks is that there is a deliberate strategy to 
create an incubator model where trainees in the three disciplines work and study 
together, allowing the cross-fertilization of ideas and cultures”.27 The Stanford 
School of Medicine takes the second approach, offering a Master of Science in 
Medicine; where instead of targeting future clinicians, they aim to get researchers 
into clinics in order to create a larger group of scientists knowledgeable about 
human diseases in order to bridge the language and intellect barrier between the 
field.27 

Another strategy to increase interdisciplinary research is to implement ways to make 
interdisciplinary research projects run smoother. This strategy is one that could 
show very quick results once implemented, as it targets projects that are either in 
progress or starting out, compared to the earlier models which target professional 
school structures. Targeting the educational systems tackles the problem at the root 
but would take a longer time to produce results. One proposal on how to help 
interdisciplinary research is to create a new form of medical practitioner, a sort of 
translator who assists in the transfer of research findings into clinical practice.28 This 
would solve the problem of different “languages” between fields. 

There are a few names for these “translators”, the most being a mentored clinical 
scientist career path (CSCP).27 The downside to this model is that the “translator” 
would need to have sufficient knowledge in a variety of highly specialized fields, 
someone with such skill set would most likely be difficult to find. Of course these 
are only a few solutions, and the reality is that more research needs to be done on the 
inner workings of interdisciplinary research teams to learn how to promote it within 
other fields. 



Berkeley Pharma Tech Journal of Medicine | 8 

5. Conclusion 

Historically, interdisciplinary research has always been a part of scientific discoveries 
(especially within the field of clinical medicine), and in modern times we are seeing 
a rise in interdisciplinary research.4 However, the clinical medicine field is very far 
behind on that trend, despite calls for more interdisciplinary research due to the 
increasing complexity of patient diagnoses. Physicians are noticing that 
multimorbidity and socioeconomic conditions are causing patients to require more 
personalized care plans, ones that they are struggling to meet.13,14 The lack of 
interdisciplinary research in medicine is due to a variety of reasons. They range from 
the increasing stratification of academia -leading to the idea that the different 
disciplines are separated by wide gaps that cannot be crossed- to the stark differences 
in methodology and language between different disciplines. The general agreement 
on how to promote interdisciplinary work in clinical medicine is to approach it early 
in a clinical education path that involves training medical students to become junior 
scientists. There are also strategies that involve Master-level and PhD-level students 
to be involved in clinical rotations so that more researchers are knowledgeable on 
clinical medicine. This paper scratches the surface of interdisciplinary research and 
clinical medicine, and in order to have more concrete answers on how to encourage 
this combination, more research needs to be done on how to effectively create teams 
of professionals in a way that overcomes any departmental differences. 



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