Making sense of medical research

Anne Taylor-Vaisey sent me this link to a Wall Street Journal article about a new site that sounds really interesting, PatientINFORM.org. I don't subscribe the WSJ, so I don't know what the article says, but this could be a great resource for patients and healthcare workers alike--it teaches how to assess the validity of the various research studies. From the site:

Reading medical news can be an exercise in frustration. Sometimes it seems that this month's findings always contradict last month's. How do you know what to believe?





Sometimes you don't. But one clue to quality is the design of the study. Although no study is perfect, some are more likely to yield reliable results than others.