publish or patent?, page-68

So Playez, you're implying that if POH spent a great deal of effort publishing in journals, then all the doctors of Australia would be both enlightened and invested?

"Poppycock", I think the editor of the Australasian Medical Journal, would say.

From what I've heard, these observations that appeared in the AMJ last September pretty accurately reflect the "real world".

• "Clinicians rarely accessed, appraised, and used explicit evidence directly from research or other formal sources; rare exceptions were where they might consult such sources after dealing with a case that had particularly challenged them. Instead, they relied on what we have called “mindlines,” collectively reinforced, internalised tacit guidelines, which were informed by brief reading, but mainly by their interactions with each other...opinion leaders, patients...pharmaceutical representatives and by other sources of largely tacit knowledge that built on their early training and their own and their colleagues' experience"

• General practitioners... have been found to be reactive and opportunistic recipients of new drug information, and rarely report undertaking an active information search. The decision to initiate a new drug is heavily influenced by advertising, endorsement by colleagues and hospital consultants.

• It is estimated that there are 1.29 papers published in the peer reviewed medical literature every minute. Even if a doctor were able to keep up with this volume of reading, it is said that much of what is published is flawed.

• "Authors routinely drop large chunks of this extremely difficult stuff into papers that are supposed to be there to illuminate practice for doctors. But most doctors, including myself, don’t understand it."

• "Authors are eager to get their names in print not because they are bursting to tell us something but for more solemn reasons. Another paper means another line on a curriculum vitae, another step towards a job or a research grant."

• The process of peer review is recognised to be flawed.

• ...the academic with the paper in a so-called high impact journal will be more likely to be successful on grant applications and be invited to speak at national and international conferences. All of which may attract postgraduate students, competitive grants and lucrative collaborations. In Australia, for example, universities who employ academics who publish on a predetermined list of journals are more likely to be rewarded with a larger share of government grants and subsidies.

• A major publisher of medical journals is a global company based in Amsterdam... In July 2010 the company posted interim profit results with a revenue of almost 3 billion GBP...This is also the company that was reported to have been paid an undisclosed sum by a pharmaceutical company to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarised articles, most of which presented data favourable to its products with no disclosure of company sponsorship.

• Seldom, if ever, does a single study, no matter how large, offer robust conclusions that will lead to change in practice.


And after that contribution from Professor Jiwa, I now officially retire from any further debate on this issue Playez.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3442191/

http://healthsciences.curtin.edu.au/research/chronic_moyez_Jiwa.cfm