Page 10 - Recommendations-for-biostatisticians-in-managing-and-conducting-medical-research-consultations

2. Essential Consulting Skills for Biostatisticians

Table 1 provides a list of important skills that are expected of a biostatistician. It is not
necessary for a biostatistician to have mastered all these skill sets overnight since both
knowledge and skills can be acquired gradually over time. This means that the skill sets
that are listed below can guide the learning process for a biostatistician which shall lend
themselves to gradually acquiring all the necessary attributes and qualities of a competent
research consultant over time. Therefore, this Table 1 provides a very useful guide for a
biostatistician to follow in order to gradually acquire all these requisite skill sets which are
necessary for a competent research consultant to acquire over time, preferably within a
short span of time.

It may not be adequate for a biostatistician to merely offer statistical advice alone
because statistical analysis is only a part of the entire research process. In addition,
statistics by itself cannot stand alone in any research work because it must serve the
purpose of a research proposal by aligning with the study design and study objective(s) of
any research. Thus, the first step will always be to assess the true scientific merit of the
research itself.

This is not a responsibility of the biostatistician. Instead, the research client is
responsible for ensuring that:
-the study has reasonable scientific merit
-the study is feasible to be conducted after considering current resources and
human capacity
-the study is complying with ethical standards
before he/she approaches a biostatistician to request for a formal biostatistical
consultation.

This is because the statistics will not make any sense if the research itself has either
little or no scientific value, or will not be feasible or is unethical. Although the scientific
merit of a research and also its accompanying ethical and feasibility considerations
are not the immediate concerns of a biostatistician, however ignoring these
considerations will almost certainly jeopardize the entire research and statistics
alone will not be able to offer any remedial action to rectify the situation. Therefore,
the biostatistician will need to make sure that the research client has provided a sound
verification of the fulfilment of all the three conditions as stated above.

After having assessed the three abovementioned conditions, the next step shall be to
determine the validity and appropriateness of its research design and methodology. This is
in order to ensure that a research design and its methodology must match its study
objective(s) exactly so that the researchers (research clients) can collect data and evaluate
them according to its study objective(s). Ideally, part of the roles and duties listed by this
section shall be assumed by the research client him/herself, who will usually be assisted by