Physician Assistant’s Guide to Research And Medical Literature

One Response to “Physician Assistant’s Guide to Research And Medical Literature”

1. Blaine says:

   October 12, 2010 at 7:15 am

   I reviewed “Physician Assistant’s Guide to Research and Medical Literature”, Edited by J. Dennis Blessing, PhD, PA-C, with a forward by Donald M Pederson, PhD, PA. Many well known and respected PA educators and clinicians authored chapters including James Cawley, Roderick Hooker, Robert Jarski, Eugene Jones, Marvis Lary, Anthony Miller, and Richard Rahr. It will be valuable to the new PA researcher and student and as an adjunct for more advanced investigators. I was so impressed with the title and authors of this text, that I ordered it before it became available for distribution. I received it in January of this year and found it to be far better than I had hoped. I was in the administer of dying a draft of a literature review for presentation to the medical staff when it arrived. With this text as my guide, I re-reviewed my literature citations for validity and found a number of items that were not worthy of inclusion in my final paper. I have a number of college level texts on medical research in my library; this is the first one I will go to from now on. A one sentence summary of the content of the book is: “Research for the Physician Assistant: how to do it, how to evaluate it” With but minimal changes, this may possibly be easily as helpful to Nurse Practitioner’s, Pharmacist’s and medical students as it is for physician assistants. The Blessing text is IMHO “THE” guide to research for clinically involved physician assistants who may only write a few research projects in their career and of course, PA students. I have taken two Research and Statistics classes in my formal studies over the years. If this text had been available to me, those courses would have been a pleasure instead of the grinding boredom they were to me. The guide is arranged into the major sections of a scientific paper, master’s thesis, or doctoral dissertation. Each chapter reviews the develop of research caught up and includes worksheets to guide the PA in outlining a research project. This guide discusses how research applies to PAs in all aspects of the profession. This text contains an simple to follow nearly paint by numbers approach to conducting and interpreting research proposals and papers that I find very helpful in my review of the literature in determining the value of the study I am reviewing. It includes the principles and pitfalls of healthcare research with vignettes from the PA world. It contains, lists of resources, a glossary, and advice on efficiently selecting articles. It is a basic, simple to use introductory guide to research for involved physician assistants and students. This guide provides matter-of-fact advice on the value of research in clinical do, how to do research even as in a do, and how to evaluate it. It is a resource text book and reference for use in analyzing do issues and conducting formal and informal investigations It discusses how and where to get published There are worksheets to make sure that no crucial research steps are forgotten and Provides guidelines on how to critically read literature, how to select the most vital articles / books to read, and how to apply the guidelines to clinical do. There are excellent examples of real-life research projects and consequences with each type of project discussed, connecting theory to actual clinical situation.

   Blaine P. Carmichael, MPAS, PA-C
   Rating: 5 / 5