Paradigms and expectations: the nature of research and diagnostics.
Researchers are judged by their best work. No matter what disasters happen at the researcher's bench, there is time to repeat experiments, discard ambiguous data and work steadily toward a clearer understanding of the research problem. The work practices of researchers are matters of personal choice, because the process of peer review prior to publication considers only the work that is reported and not all work done by the researcher. On the other hand, the diagnostician's credibility is directly linked to every experiment performed, because a customer is waiting for the result. This paper contrasts aspects of the work of researchers and diagnosticians and concludes that researchers could benefit from understanding the framework within which diagnosticians operate.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Adelaide, Australia. rswanson@microb.adelaide.edu.au
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D000818:Animals; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D019937:Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D010271:Parasites / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010274:Parasitology / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards; D011786:Quality Control; D012106:Research / Q000592:standards*; D012107:Research Design; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity