Introduction To The Course: Basics of Scientific Research Class #1

Basics of Scientific Research
Class #1
Introduction to the course

Ekaterine Karkashadze, MD, MS
Instructor: Dr. Ekaterine Karkashadze, MD, MS
Researcher, Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Center
16 Al. Kazbegi Avenue, Tbilisi, Georgia
Contact information:
Tel: 555-17 51 15
E-mail: ekaterine.karkashadze@ciu.edu.ge
Education:
• MD: Tbilisi State Medical University, Tbilisi, Georgia (2004)
• MS: University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA (2015)
Scientific work:
• Publications in peer-reviewed journals, poster and oral presentations at international conferences
Basics of Scientific Research: Aim of the Course
• Understand scientific research in medicine
• Gain knowledge about the scientific research methods
• Make sense of scientific literature
• Lay foundation for developing research skills
Course schedule
• Lecture 1hr : Wednesday, 10:00
• Practical trainings 1 hr:
Group 1 – Tuesday, 10:00
Group 2 - Tuesday, 11:00
Group 3 - Wednesday, 11:00
Group 4 - Wednesday, 12:00
Basics of Scientific Research: Structure
Activity Hours
Lecture 10 hr.
Practical trainings 12 hours
Presentation 4 hours
Midterm and final exams 3 hours
Independent work 46 hours
TOTAL: 75 hours
Basics of Scientific Research: Evaluation
Activity Points A) Five positive grades:

(A) Excellent – 91-100;
Weekly evaluations 35 points (B) Very good - 81-90;
(C) Good - 71-80;
Presentation 5 points (D) Satisfactory - 61-70;
(E) Sufficient - 51-60;
Midterm exam 20 points
Final exam 40 points B) Two types of negative evaluation
(FX) Not passed- 41-50 (retake exam)
TOTAL: 100 points
(F) Fail - 40 or less (retake class)
The Course Material
• Lecture slides
• Materials distributed during
practical trainings
• Only topics discussed in classes

will be included in quizzes and
exams
Student introductions
1). First and last name
2). Country of origin and citizenship
3). Anything you consider to share

Questions about the course?
The Aim of Science in Medicine
• Science: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the
systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and
natural world through observation and experiment.
• The aim of science is

• To advance knowledge for the good of society
• To improve the health of people worldwide
• To find better ways to treat and prevent disease.
The Aim of Science in Medicine
• Science generates knowledge through conducting research
• Research: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and

sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions
• Research  Knowledge (Evidence)  Health policy  Improved

health and wellbeing of people
Scientific Research
• Inductive (e.g. theory –building) - researcher infers theoretical
concepts and patterns from observed data.
• Deductive (e.g. theory-testing) - researcher tests concepts and
patterns known from theory using new empirical data.
Elegant theories are not valuable if they do not match with reality.
Scientific method
a standardized set of techniques for building scientific knowledge, such
as how to make valid observations, how to interpret results, and how to
generalize those results.
Four 4 characteristics to be satisfied:

Replicability: Others should be able to independently replicate or repeat a
scientific study and obtain similar (not identical) results.
Precision: Theoretical concepts must be defined with such precision that
others can use those definitions to measure those concepts and test that
theory.
Falsifiability: A theory must be stated in a way that it can be disproven.
Theories that cannot be tested or falsified are not scientific theories.
Parsimony: When there are multiple explanations of a phenomenon, scientists
must always accept the simplest or logically most economical explanation.
Key concepts of scientific method
General question about the problem/ real world phenomenon
Narrowing down to focus on a specific problem/ formulating

research question
Designing research, observing specific aspects
Analyzing this aspect
Implications to real world problem
Generalization of the findings to the real world

Evidence-based medicine
• Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating
whether a belief or proposition is true or valid
• Evidence-based medicine (EBM): care of patients using the best

available research evidence to guide clinical decision making
− making sure that when decisions are made about treatment, they are made
on the basis of the most up-to-date, solid, reliable, scientific evidence
Evidence based Medicine (EBM)
• Not “cookbook” with recipes, but its good application brings cost-
effective and better health care.
• The key difference between evidence-based medicine and traditional
medicine is NOT that EBM considers the evidence while the latter
does not. Both take evidence into account;
• EBM demands better evidence than has traditionally been used;
• Development of systematic reviews and meta-analyses e.g.
methods by which researchers identify multiple studies on a
topic, separate the best ones and then critically analyze them
to come up with a summary of the best available evidence.
Tasks of EBM-oriented clinicians
• to use evidence in clinical practice;
• to help develop and update systematic reviews or evidence-based
guidelines in their area of expertise;
• to enroll patients in trials / studies of treatment, diagnosis and
prognosis on which medical practice is based.
Hand washing and infections
• Puerperal fever was killing 13% of women delivering in the
hospital
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis
• Observed: Students go between autopsy room and (1818-1865)
labor/delivery room without washing hands
• Intervention: When leave autopsy room, must wash hands with
chlorine solution
• Mortality dropped from 13% to 2% immediately
• Published book “Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed
Fever”
Harmful effect of tobacco smoking was not always known
Only in early 1950s people started to realize that tobacco

smoking can be seriously harmful to health
Evidence proving harmful effect of tobacco smoking
• 1952 Hammond-Horn Study launched to examine the association of
cigarette smoking with death rates from cancer and other diseases
• 188 000 men enrolled Trends in Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer Deaths in the U.S.
• Published results in 1954

• JAMA. 1954;155(15):1316-1328
• This study helped to
establish cigarette smoking
as a cause of death from
lung cancer and coronary
heart disease.
174 pages
Evidence Behind Recommendations on How to Treat Colon Cancer
Doing Research
• Why am I doing it?
• Why am I doing it this way?
• What might be done with what I find out?
Why am I doing it?
• Problem
• Hospital-acquired infection is recognized as a concern to be addressed
• Research question
• Does hand washing among healthcare workers reduce hospital acquired
infections?
• What is scientific knowledge about proposed intervention

• Do a literature review, ask colleagues, attend conference
Why am I doing it this way?
• To generate believable new knowledge research must be scientifically
sound:
• Appropriate design of the research
• Appropriate sampling
• Instruments for data collection needs to be valid and reliable
• Careful interpretation of results, including their limitation
What might be done with what I find out?
• To make crucial changes in clinical practice
• Hand washing – reduced rates of hospital acquired infections
• To test or generate new hypothesis, explore the problem of interest in

small pilot study
• Conduct large scale research
Reading through someone else’s research or undertaking of research yourself is
an unavoidable and essential part of learning and later practicing medicine
Aim of the course:

• Make sense of the research and medical literature your read
• Judge the quality of what you are reading and decide whether it’s
worth acting upon
• Lay foundation for future research activities
− Undertake research
− Write and publish research articles
Questions?
Homework
• Reading from the course book (Ann. K. Allen. Research skills for
Medical Students.SAGE Publication Inc. 2012)
• Pages 8-14

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Basics of Scientific Research

Introduction to the course

Activity Points A) Five positive grades:

• Only topics discussed in classes

1). First and last name

2). Country of origin and citizenship

3). Anything you consider to share

• The aim of science is

• Research: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and

• Research  Knowledge (Evidence)  Health policy  Improved

Four 4 characteristics to be satisfied:

Narrowing down to focus on a specific problem/ formulating

Designing research, observing specific aspects

Analyzing this aspect

Implications to real world problem

Generalization of the findings to the real world

• Evidence-based medicine (EBM): care of patients using the best

Only in early 1950s people started to realize that tobacco

• Published results in 1954

• What is scientific knowledge about proposed intervention

• To test or generate new hypothesis, explore the problem of interest in

Aim of the course:

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