Print

Print
Dear Jon and others,
Thanks for bringing up this exciting and painful discussion.
Two questions:
The jigsaw is not yet complete.
Best wishes,
Lubna
 

Dr.Lubna A. Al-Ansary, MSc, FRCGP
Associate Professor and Consultant,
Dept of Family & Community Medicine
College of Medicine, King Saud University,
Holder of "Shaikh Abdullah Bahamdan Research Chair for Evidence-Based Health Care and Knowledge Translation"
P.O.Box 2925, Riyadh 11461
SAUDI ARABIA
Email: [log in to unmask] , [log in to unmask]

http://ebhc-kt.ksu.edu.sa/

http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/5930/default.aspx

 



From: Andrzej Glowinski <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, November 4, 2010 1:14:38 AM
Subject: Re: Too much bad research - conflicts of interest in academia

I apologise for my cynicism, but I am surprised that some other factors or drivers have not surfaced in this discussion:--

1. Additional merit is often assigned to the volume of research and publications rather than simply to its quality (both for individuals and institutions).
2. Publicity (via papers/research activity) breeds familiarity breeds apparent credibility -- isn't the first paper the hardest to get out there?  The more you publish the easier it is to get a paper accepted…

Funding follows, as does kudos.  As a result, the pressure is very much on to research and to publish, perhaps with quality and significance taking a back seat.

Andrzej Glowinski

On 3 Nov 2010, at 10:57, Jon Brassey wrote:

Hi All,
 
I've just come back from the very good Evidence 2010 conference.  I came away with lots of themes buzzing around in my head, but a few nicely sit together:
 
  • There is too much research being pushed out, clinicians can't keep up to date.
  • Much of the research is 'dodgy' (e.g. pharma involvement, not long enough, dubious outcomes, not patient focused etc)
The solution seems to be to stop the bloat of papers and do much less research that is better focused and has better outcomes and run for long enough.  The phrase 'less is more' springs to mind!  However, this solution seems to conflict with another strong theme from the conference - conflicts of interest in academia.  Suggesting doing less research to academics appears to be similar to asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.
 
Is the solution to do less (but better) research or am I missing something?  Also, given that this is ostensibly an academic list does the notion of academia being a problem/conflicted in EBM/EBHC meet with approval or horror?  I appreciate I'm open to accusations of naivety (it hardly be the first time) but it the theme of academic conflicts was strong and came from multiple people (way more prominent than me)!
 
Best wishes
 
jon
 
Jon Brassey
TRIP Database