Debunking column needed...1/2 serious

[mycrofft]

The quality (and I use that phrase with some mirth) of current events and studies which are reported in the media and hence here ("It's on the Internet, it has to be right....right?:mellow" often teeter between entertaining and infuriating, like a mosquito that won't go away and gets quiet when you slap at it. I know we don't really need a "medical mythbusters" category, but can people take some care when they relay these "studies" (as in "Studies show...") to either put a good healthy caveat on them, or at least look up something about the study, or just let it pass until they get their next-level study done?

Aren't EMS students taught anything about science as a philosophy, or just that it is a tool, like a fork or that sharpened rock they used to cut up their raw antelope for breakfast? Statistics classes?<_<

 

[medicRob]

The majority (if not 90%+) of programs do not teach their students how to evaluate research. They enter into a world where correlation always equals causation and think that just because it is published in a peer-reviewed journal that it is true. A perfect example of this is that horrible, "Prehospital IV Fluids Associated with increased mortality study" which had more flaws than any single piece of research I have seen in the past 3 years.

To teach a student basic research statistics and evaluation of research would mean that medic programs would have to actually EDUCATE instead of teach skills, and the IAFF just won't have that.

</rage>

 

[mycrofft]

Bro, people cite articles form newspapers and probably "Peepuhl Magazine"

Early in my education, as a Sociology major, I dropped Psych Today when I realized these "Studies" they cited were just professors or grad students polling their class.
University of Nebraska/Omaha used to offer a class called "Statistics for Health Professionals". I suggest that, and whatever they now call "Industrial Psychology", should be mandatory...in HIGHSCHOOL.

 

[mycrofft]

OK, subject #1: how many people die of snakebite in America annually?

Ready, steady, GO:excl: