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Most of the practicing clinicians
do not have the time to read the literature in their own areas and be up-to-date
on new information, be able to critically appraise the literature and its
validity and usefulness, without being trained to do so. Fortunately, there are
readily available sources that clinicians can turn to, to find the steps
mentioned above have been undertaken by experts in the area, and disseminated in
a useful format for the use of ordinary practicing clinicians. One such source
is the Cochrane Collaboration Library which is a rapidly growing international
group of clinicians, methodologists and consumer groups who undertook the task
of appraising the literature in various specialties, collating evidence from
good quality research and publishing the result in the so-called systematic
reviews. Another source is the appearance of a new type of journals, such as the
Evidence-Based Medicine Journal and the American College of Physicians’
Journal Club publications. With little effort, in the beginning, most clinicians
should be able to utilize these sources to find out clinically important
information in the areas of diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. These sources are
readily available.
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