Clinical pharmacology is the discipline devoted to the study of the rational use of medicines in ways that safely and effectively treat disease. It occupies a position between the frontline work of physicians with patients seeking care and the realm of pure research where new drugs are created and studied. Clinical pharmacology is broad in scope, as it includes forms of study ranging from the development of new molecular structures in the course of drug development to statistical analysis of the effects of medications on the populations of large regions. Usually when the appellation “clinical pharmacologist” is used, it refers to a physician who has an added specialty in clinical pharmacology, but because the discipline is so broad, covering all aspects of the interactions between ...