Getting Started in Health Research

The relatively recent big increase in funding by central government (both in the UK, as well as in other countries) of applied health research, has meant that many clinicians are having to engage in clinical research. Many of them will have no previous experience of doing their own research, and are [...]
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The relatively recent big increase in funding by central government (both in the UK, as well as in other countries) of applied health research, has meant that many clinicians are having to engage in clinical research. Many of them will have no previous experience of doing their own research, and are likely to find the process completely baffling. How even to get started! Moreover, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of clinicians doing Masters' degrees in health areas, of which dissertations are a large part. Increasing numbers of these people need research skills to enable them to do the required research and write these dissertations. Additionally, the idea of EBM (Evidence-Based Medicine), is now widely accepted and is reasonably well established in the various disciplines of clinical practice. The "evidence" for successful and appropriate clinical practice is most frequently gathered from the research efforts of clinicians. One consequence of this is that it places a responsibility on all clinicians to, at the very least, understand research results.