Reading and evaluating clinical trials is one of the tougher things to do as a trainee or new provider. Many times, you only get the minimal amount of training in school and often you don’t pay close enough attention anyway. I find that a lot of trainees think, “I’m here to learn clinical medicine, I’m not interested in research.” But then later realize (hopefully) the benefit of being able to critically read the literature. The extreme responses that I see from a lot of newer providers are, 1) accept everything because it was published in a “good” journal, or because I’ve heard people talking about it on social media/podcast/etc. or 2) give up and just do whatever you see others doing because interpreting it for yourself is too confusing.
So, this quick algorithm from CHEST Critical Care is super helpful. HT to Chris Carroll (@chriscarrollmd.bsky.social). The first image is the pathway that you can follow to ask yourself a few simple questions to decide if this study works for you. That is the key part of this, a study can be “good” and accepted for publication (even in a so-called “good” journal) and still not be something you should implement. The second image just goes over some relevant terms when it comes to research.
Here’s a link to the original article.
critical care notes 