Using Clinical Trial Results
Even the best randomized clinical trials cannot tell us for whom a given treatment is better, only that a given treatment is better than what it is being compared to. When we then read that trial after it has been published, we have to make a determination about whether or not we can apply it […]
How to Find the Best evidence
How to Find the Best evidence Keeping up with the current best evidence is a difficult process for all of us. New knowledge is expanding at a frightening rate, and it is easy for us to become overwhelmed by it. The authors of the small text “Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM” (1) […]
Where and How Clinical Questions Arise
Where and How Clinical Questions Arise In the practice of evidence-based chiropractic, there is a significant amount of attention paid to developing good clinical questions. Part of the approach used to teach or practice EBC is to focus on the development of a so-called PICO question; that is, a question that asks us to determine […]
Most Influential Business Books
My Most Influential Business Books I have become somewhat addicted to books about business, largely because I find so much in them that I can apply to my work here at Parker. The following list is not all-inclusive but does list some of the books that have affected me the most. 1. Leading Change, by […]
The Belmont Report
In the annals of research ethics within the United States, the importance of the Belmont Report (http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/belmont.html) cannot be overstated. It was an outgrowth of the National Research Act of 1974, which came about because of a series of events that had occurred in the 30 years leading up to the implementation of the Act. […]
Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
In general, scholarly research articles are divided into the following sections: Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusion (sometimes referred to as the IMRAD format), though each main heading might have subsections. There will also be an abstract, usually in a structured format, and a reference section; articles missing any of these pieces are likely flawed in […]
PICO

One of the core concepts of evidence-based clinical practice is the development of a PICO question. You may have heard this term bandied about in discussion but may not have been exactly what is meant by it. Let me discuss that here. One of the initial steps in applying the concepts of EBCP to clinical […]
Reading a Clinical Trial

While I think we typically believe the results of clinical trials to be objective, this is in reality not often the case; the interpretation of results will reflect the worldview of the investigator (1). There are numerous “threats” to the integrity of the data that we, as readers, need to be aware of. Some are […]
Research Integrity

A New Journal on Peer Review One of the hallmarks of scientific journal publication is the peer review system. An editor cannot be knowledgeable about every possible area of research the journal he or she edits receives for consideration. So the paper is sent for review by people with expertise in the area the paper […]