Promoting critical appraisal skills

[Extract] In the concluding section of most research reports, there is a unanimous opinion that more research is needed, and indeed, more research is often needed. However, Douglas Altman once suggested that “we need less research, better research, and research done for the right reasons”. It is now widely accepted that there is a massive amount of avoidable waste in medical research because of inadequate research prioritisation, conceptualisation, design, execution, analysis, and reporting. These deficiencies reflect poor training in research design, which is almost an inevitable consequence of inadequate mentoring of students who are expected to do research as part of their education.