Page 14 - Recommendations-for-biostatisticians-in-managing-and-conducting-medical-research-consultations
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3.1 First question: Please describe your study


               This  is  the  first  most  common  approach  to  propose  a  new  research  idea  whereby  the
               research  client  will  initially  describe  his/her  new  research  proposal  with  regard  to  its
               study topic and its study objective(s). During this initial briefing, the research clients may
               have  introduced  some  new  terminologies  of  the  subject  matter  which  are  regarded  as
               technical  jargons  by  the  biostatistician.  Such  technical  jargon  (particularly  involving
               medical terminology) may pose  difficulties  for  the  biostatistician to comprehend. Hence,
               the biostatistician should first seek to clarify with the research client the meaning of all
               these medical terms used by the research client. After having done that, the biostatistician
               can then begin to formulate an understanding of the background subject matter and also
               the gather a preliminary idea of the proposed scope of the research study (including both
               its breadth and depth) and also its study objective(s).

                   A common practice for the research client to adopt is to ensure that the biostatistician
               must have acquired a basic understanding of the background subject matter prior to the
               research  consultation  session  by  sending  his/her  full  research  proposal  to  the
               biostatistician for a preliminary perusal. This is to enable the biostatistician to obtain an
               initial brief overview of the research proposal by doing some preparatory work such as
               reading through the introduction section and conducting a literature review of the subject
               before  the  consultation  session.  However,  this  approach  will  only  be  useful  for  a
               biostatistician  if  the  background  information  in  the  “introduction”  section  and  the
               literature review that is conducted for the research proposal have been well-written, along
               with the consideration of as many research hypotheses as possible. Otherwise, it can pose a
               serious  challenge  to  a  biostatistician  when  he/she  is  trying  to  understand the  proposed
               research topic by conducting a preliminary review of the research proposal.

                   Despite this, it has been commonly seen that those research clients who are requesting
               for a biostatistical consultation service are usually undergraduate or postgraduate students
               with little or no prior experience in medical research. Therefore, it would not be realistic
               for  a  biostatistician  to  expect  an  initial  draft  of  the  research  proposal  to  be  accurately
               written.  For  those  undergraduate  or  postgraduate  students  having  little  or  no  prior
               experience in medical research, one possible way to  get around this problem is to meet
               face-to-face with the biostatistician to enable both parties to obtain a preliminary overview
               of a research proposal, an approach which some postgraduate students seem to prefer.
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