On September 1st, we had Aurora Esquela Kerscher, PhD (Associate professor of microbiology and molecular cell biology and a prostate cancer researcher at Leroy T. Canoles Jr. Cancer Research Center) offered strategies to help laypeople understand medical research articles.
Laypeople may want to read medical journals to find out the latest research in the media, including findings that might impact their care. Dr. Kerscher said it can be hard to track down and expensive to obtain papers. She said Google Scholar at https://scholar.google.com/ and PubMed.gov can lead to pertinent papers. ResearchGate.net can help link people to authors, who might be willing to send interested parties their papers.
In this presentation, Dr. Kerscher gave an anatomy of a research paper, focusing on a new study on how exercise can help prostate as well as cardiac health in men on active surveillance.
She also provided a step-by-step guide on how to quickly read/skim a research paper.
“Ask yourself – WHAT IS THE BIG QUESTION?”
–What problem is being addressed?
–Then ask yourself – Why should I care?
Her final helpful tips were:
• Read slowly, take notes as you read,
• Question assumptions, the importance of the problem.
• Write questions to track what you don’t understand. Write down and translate jargon in Google.
• Sometimes what is not in the paper is more important than what is in it.
• Is there something the authors have overlooked?
• Don’t let ideas or design details pass until you understand them.
• Do not assume the paper is correct, even if published in a prestigious peer-reviewed venue
Watch this extremely information presentation here:
To view the slides from this presentation, click here.
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