No one is asking them to assume such a role nor are they implicitly in such a role because of their status as clinicians (regardless of what the clinician may believe about his/her research aptitude). However, there will be no sound clinical decision making if the clinician does not understand the basics of research methodology and that is why the EBM movement started - there are only two options:
a) Train clinicians to use the medical literature and thus train them to the level (at least) where epidemiological and biostatistical results are clearly understood
b) Hire a fortune-teller to sit in their clinics
Clearly, no one will endorse b)…