The Long Journey of a Research Article

 Most health care providers are in a hurry and have little time to devote to reading medical articles. Often browsing just the title and summary, they want to know, “what does this mean for me or my patients?” They have little time to get into the details of how the study was done, who participated, or even the results. This short post is an attempt to demystify the research process to encourage health professionals to seek more from the studies they read and to pass on these findings to others in the field who can make a difference. As an illustration, I will use a recent publication from our research team that appears online at the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, “I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know if I helped her go faster or slower” The research, funded by a government grant, began long before the article was published. Our team began thinking about and writing the proposal for funding in the fall of 2008. It was submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) six months later, where it was reviewed by experts. These people were skilled scientists with a wide variety of knowledge and experience. They returned our proposal to us with recommendations for improvement; research proposals are rarely funded the first time without changes. NIH accepts proposals on three dates each year, so we revised and resubmitted our proposal at the next possible opportunity. It was reviewed positively in February 2010. At NIH, reviewers give proposals scores ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Carer Workers Authors: Source Type: blogs