Seriously improving your ability as a doctor

If you are anything like I was as a medical student, the thought of having to read, let alone understand, research papers could be summed up with a long heartfelt sigh. In my ever growing list of things to read, digest, memorise, and regurgitate on demand, papers were right near the bottom (at the bottom was learning the Krebs cycle). Reading papers was a bit like doing exercise; I knew that I should because it would be good for me in the long run, but I could not find the motivation to start or persevere when I realised I was not going to transform into a muscled marathon runner overnight. Even if I did muster up the enthusiasm to read a paper, I was always phased at the title stage because I did not know the difference between cohort and case control, systematic and non-systematic, qualitative and quantitative, and so on. Feeling guilty about my ignorance made me simply give up in the hope that one day by …