Studying a Study and Testing a Test: How to Read the Medical Evidence

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Studying a Study and Testing a Test: How to Read the Medical Evidence (Core Handbook Series in Pediatrics)



Publisher:  Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Number Of Pages:  328
Publication Date:  2004-10-01
Sales Rank:  91435
ISBN / ASIN:  0781745764
EAN:  9780781745765
Binding:  Paperback
Manufacturer:  Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Studio:  Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Average Rating:  4



Now in its Fifth Edition, this best-selling text presents a step-by-step approach to critical and efficient reading of the medical literature. Health care professionals will learn how to evaluate clinical studies, identify flaws in study design, interpret statistics, and apply evidence from clinical research in practice. This edition’s new section, Guide to the Guidelines, reflects the growing use and importance of clinical guidelines. The outcomes research chapter includes concepts of safety and effects of interactions on outcomes. This edition also presents statistics more graphically. Unique learning aids include question checklists, scenarios illustrating study design, and flaw-catching exercises, plus a StudyingaStudy.com Website providing interactive materials.

Review:

Reading: Broad or narrow?

This book assumes that the reading of medical texts is not just something that is self-evident, but something that can be learned by reading the book. \"The traditional course in reading the medical literature consists of \"Here's the New England Journal of Medicine. Read it!\". Unlike this \"sink or swim\" method, this book provides a step-by step, active-participation approach to a clinical review of the medical literature.

In a way, this book is a traditional book on research methods turned upside down. Instead of telling the researcher how to do and report a study, this book tells the reader how to apply such knowledge in determining the quality of a medical paper. As such it is well written, clear and relevant.

I would like to suggest, however, that research methods are always depending on a views in the philosophy of science. (Courses in the Philosophy of Medicine are becoming more and more important in the education of Doctors). As an example of a well received book I can mention \"hilosophy of Medicine. An Introduction\" by Henrik R. Wulff, Stig Andur Pedersen & Raben Rosenberg (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1986). Knowledge of this kind should enable the reader to read and interpret the medical literature at a still higher level. (It is of course more difficult to write easy \"how to read books\" based on such a more theoretical and philosophical level compared to the more statistical and methodical level).

There exists a broader literature on \"Clinical reasoning in the health Professions\" (Higgs et al), \"Medical semiotics\" (Baer et al.), diverse philosophical studies of medicine, \"Quality in science\" and much more. It would be interesting if anyone would try to expose how such knowledge could be turned upside down as guide on how to read the medical literature on a still deeper level.

It is my claim that a general background in philosophy and science studies should provide readers with even better qualifications to read the scientific literature. This is not an extraordinary position. In Denmark courses in the philosophy of science are very popular, and just now are we discussing to make such courses compulsory in all university studies.


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