Research Utilization in Clinical Practice

Research, when mentioned to the everyday clinician, has, in my observation, always evoked images of nerds in lab gowns tinkering with glassware or number-crunching geeks hunched over laptops or charts. The average orthopedic surgeon is strongly averse to it and may mention that they are not research-oriented, or that research is not their cup of tea. While it seems that only a few have been bitten by the research bug, everyone who practices medicine—and of course, orthopedics—should spare a moment to reflect on how every aspect of practice has been touched by research. Gone are the days when the medical practitioner relied on oral tradition and eminence-based pronouncements. Medicine is today the result of a billion steps—big and small—of medical research breakthroughs. From the discovery of penicillin to the development of the polio vaccine to computer-assisted orthopedic surgery to gene editing for sickle cell disease, many are the products of lab rats (real and metaphorical), clinicians and lateral thinkers—all in the name of research.