Permanent leading Medicine
member of the MAQ
Lorenzo Mignani
Medicine
The value of scientific articles in medicine
Today, medical news is never in the complete confusion of the great ocean of the web and it is very difficult even for a professional to understand its value. My intent is to try to give some elements to start orient the reader.
Today, with the increase of "predatory" magazines (scientific "magazines" that have very little scientific, publish anything, regardless of its reliability, on payment) chaos is total. In addition to this the news written by anyone on the web, often without any preparation on the subject and acquired for reliable motivations suggestive of personal beliefs and without any scientific support, contribute to muddy the scenario. It is possible to find a datum and its opposite. So it is not easy for those who do not have the right tools to understand the level of what is read.
How then to evaluate the reliability of a study? Here I will try to do a little clarity.
The article is divided into several parts to not make it too long and heavy (it might seem very difficult but it is not, and explains things that would require whole volumes).
Normally, scientific news arrives indirectly through intermediaries. Each of us is more or less informed in the same way: online and paper popular articles, magazine articles (specialist or general), television services, word of mouth with friends and relatives.
All that comes from the news, of course, must have had an origin from some researcher who at a certain point said "it is established: we now know that from A drift B" writing all its demonstrative work in a scientific journal in detail and technique. Later, scientific journalists, professionals or those interested in that topic, will read that publication and disseminate the news by their means: generally the first step is to look for the study in a dedicated search engine, and PubMed in medical field is the most used.
How to read a scientific study is not as easy as it may seem to a layman, there are many elements to be evaluated, technical details and facts that, who is not from the industry, could underestimate.
Even the apparently most banal research can contain a stroke of genius and even the most complicated research can be, in reality, true trash. How then to evaluate the importance of a scientific study?
"Although the fear will have more topics, choose hope."
Acrylics on canvas 108x108x5 cm
MAQ/March 2018/54