Physician Assistant's Guide to Research and Medical Literature [Paperback]

J. Dennis Blessing (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0803607687 | ISBN-13: 978-0803607682

This user-friendly guide to research for physician assistants (PAs) and PA students offers practical advice on the value of research in practice, how to go about engaging in research while in a practice, and how to evaluate it. It also covers how and where to get published, and includes worksheets.

Product Details

• Paperback: 110 pages
• Publisher: F. A. Davis Company (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803607687
• ISBN-13: 978-0803607682
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,589,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The PA Guide to Research and Medical Literature, July 4, 2001

By 

Blaine (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Physician Assistant's Guide to Research and Medical Literature (Paperback)

I reviewed "Physician Assistant's Guide to Research and Medical Literature", Edited by J. Dennis Blessing, PhD, PA-C, with a forward by Donald M Pederson, PhD, PA. Many well known and respected PA educators and clinicians authored chapters including James Cawley, Roderick Hooker, Robert Jarski, Eugene Jones, Marvis Lary, Anthony Miller, and Richard Rahr. It will be valuable to the new PA researcher and student and as an adjunct for more advanced investigators. I was so impressed with the title and authors of this text, that I ordered it before it became available for distribution. I received it in January of this year and found it to be far better than I had hoped. I was in the process of finishing a draft of a literature review for presentation to the medical staff when it arrived. With this text as my guide, I re-reviewed my literature citations for validity and found a number of items that were not worthy of inclusion in my final paper. I have a number of college level texts on medical research in my library; this is the first one I will go to from now on. A one sentence summary of the content of the book is: "Research for the Physician Assistant: how to do it, how to evaluate it" With but minimal changes, this could be easily as useful to Nurse Practitioner's, Pharmacist's and medical students as it is for physician assistants. The Blessing text is IMHO "THE" guide to research for clinically practicing physician assistants who may only write a few research projects in their career and of course, PA students. I have taken two Research and Statistics classes in my formal studies over the years. If this text had been available to me, those courses would have been a pleasure instead of the grinding boredom they were to me. The guide is arranged into the major sections of a scientific paper, master's thesis, or doctoral dissertation. Each chapter reviews the model of research involved and includes worksheets to guide the PA in outlining a research project. This guide discusses how research applies to PAs in all aspects of the profession. This text contains an easy to follow almost paint by numbers approach to conducting and interpreting research proposals and papers that I find very useful in my review of the literature in determining the value of the study I am reviewing. It includes the principles and pitfalls of healthcare research with vignettes from the PA world. It contains, lists of resources, a glossary, and advice on efficiently selecting articles. It is a basic, easy to use introductory guide to research for practicing physician assistants and students. This guide provides practical advice on the value of research in clinical practice, how to do research while in a practice, and how to evaluate it. It is a resource text book and reference for use in analyzing practice issues and conducting formal and informal investigations It discusses how and where to get published There are worksheets to ensure that no crucial research steps are forgotten and Provides guidelines on how to critically read literature, how to select the most important articles / books to read, and how to apply the guidelines to clinical practice. There are good examples of real-life research projects and results with each type of project discussed, connecting theory to actual clinical situation.

Blaine P. Carmichael, MPAS, PA-C