Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Social Organization of Best Practice pp 53–67Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Everyday Practices of Randomized Controlled Trials

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 177 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, I describe what I observed or was told by nurses and physicians about their everyday practices of participating in clinical trials as they go about their work of providing care in academic teaching hospitals. Through these accounts, the invisible social relations underpinning how research and care are coordinated emerge. It becomes increasingly clear that only one group of physicians is in fact part of the development of this knowledge and that this group tends to then promote that knowledge.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Notes

  1. 1.

    Rankin and Campbell (2006) have described how the practice of setting and monitoring patient’s length of stay as a key indicator of hospital performance has led to some staff viewing patients as bed blockers.

References

  • Alderson, P. (1998). Theories in health care and research: The importance of theories in health care. British Medical Journal, 317, 1007–1010.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beaglehole, R. (2001). Global cardiovascular disease prevention: Time to get serious. Lancet, 358, 661–663.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brennan, T. A., Rothman, D. J., Blank, L., Blumenthal, D., Chimonas, S. C., Cohen, J. J., et al. (2006). Health industry practices that create conflicts of interest: A policy proposal for academic medical centers. Journal of the American Medical Association, 295, 429–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dana, J., & Loewenstein, G. (2003). A social science perspective on gifts to physicians from industry. Journal of the American Medical Association, 290, 252–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eccles, M. P., Grimshaw, J. M., Johnston, M., Steen, N., Pitts, N. B., Thomas, R., et al. (2007). Applying psychological theories to evidence-based clinical practice: Identifying factors predictive of managing upper respiratory tract infections with antibiotics. Journal of Implementation Science, 2, 26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gabbay, J., & le May, A. (2006). Evidence based guidelines or collectively constructed mindlines? Ethnographic study of knowledge management in primary care. British Medical Journal, 329, 1013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, L. B. (2008). How much can be gained by more systematic prevention of stroke? International Journal of Stroke, 3(4), 266–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graham, I., Logan, J., Harrison, M. B., Straus, S. E., Tetroe, J., Caswell, W., et al. (2006). Lost in translation: Time for a map? Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 26, 13–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta, M. (2003). A critical appraisal of evidence-based medicine: Some ethical considerations. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 9, 111–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hess, D. (1998). Can bacteria cause cancer? Alternative medicine confronts big science. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, J. (2000). And just what is the emperor of stroke wearing? Western Journal of Medicine, 174, 149–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lambert, H. (2005). Accounting for EBM: Notions of evidence in medicine. Social Science & Medicine, 62, 2633–2645.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Petticrew, M. (2007). More research needed: Plugging gaps in the evidence base on health inequalities. European Journal of Public Health, 17, 411–413. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckm094

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rankin, J. M., & Campbell, M. L. (2006). Managing to nurse: Inside Canada’s health care reform. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, D. (2000). Thrombolytics in stroke: Whose risk is it anyway? Western Journal of Medicine, 173, 148–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Timmermans, S., & Berg, M. (2003). The gold standard: The challenge of evidence-based medicine and standardization in health care. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tremblay, G. J. L., Drouin, D., Parker, J., Monette, C., Cote, D. F., & Reid, R. D. (2004). The Canadian Cardiovascular Society and knowledge translation: Turning evidence into best practice. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 20, 1195–1198.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Fiona Webster

Authors
  1. Fiona Webster
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fiona Webster .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Webster, F. (2020). The Everyday Practices of Randomized Controlled Trials. In: The Social Organization of Best Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43165-5_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43165-5_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43164-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43165-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation