> My typical response to a request goes something like...
>
> "I am happy to help you with your systematic review. In preparation for our first meeting, please send me your PICO question, 2-3 articles that you would definitely want to include,
= = = > I have been much less organized. I have been assuming that the faculty/doctor/researcher knows what he's saying when he says "Systematic Review." This assumption has wasted a certain amount of time, I must admit.
There are little warning signs, like when he says: I want a "Systematic SEARCH." Or he says: "My boss wants me to write a systematic review…" Or: "I've already done the search; I just need your blessing on the strategy…" Or his EndNote is from the 1990's. He doesn't know PRISMA from his elbow. Never heard of Cochrane. He's not sure if he has ever READ a Systematic Review. When I drop the name of our best biostatistician/epidemiologist, he hasn't heard of her. Now you know something is wrong.
For some others, I say: "Are you REALLY wanting to do a systematic review with an uppercase "S" and an uppercase "R" …??" -- and I make my eyes big and scary. "You're willing to stop your exercise regimen, your yoga, your marriage, your hobby, your kids, your job..? Are you smooth and confident and facile with "Groups" in EndNote…? Do you have the foggiest notion how to send an EndNote database to someone, via email? Do you have a backup coffee pot, a couple of huge monitors, and a pocket-protector…?"
I continue to rave, hoping they'll go away: "Before you start, see your eye doctor. We want "before & after" refractory numbers. If your spouse is not on-board with this, see a lawyer."
____
Tom Mead
Reference Librarian
Biomedical Libraries
Dartmouth College
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science
Hanover, New Hampshire
|