Success in Academic Surgery: Clinical Trials


Book Description

Surgical education is a rapidly expanding area of surgical research and career interest, and as the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) Fall Courses (www.aasurg.org) and International courses offer more and more specialty tracking there is a greater need for an accompanying textbook to supplement the material presented in the courses.




Success in Academic Surgery


Book Description

How does one become a successful academic surgeon? The Association for Academic Surgery has been teaching this to medical students, residents, and young faculty for the over 20 years and this is the first time the experience and lessons learned have been summarized in a book format. Success in Academic Surgery, Part 1, reinforces the curriculum of the Association for Academic Surgery courses and also provides guidance to individual surgeons who have not had the opportunity to attend these courses. Thus, this book is a valuable reference for medical students, surgical residents, and young surgical faculty.




Success in Academic Surgery: Basic Science


Book Description

Academic surgeons play an essential role in advancing the field and improving the care of patients with surgical disease. As the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) Fall Courses (www.aasurg.org) and international courses continue to evolve to address the rapidly expanding scope and complexity of academic surgery, there is a greater need for an accompanying textbook to supplement the material presented in the courses. Success in Academic Surgery: Basic Science is a unique and portable handbook that focuses on the basic and translational research. It includes new educational materials that are necessary to address not only the rapid evolution and rise of novel research methodologies in basic science and translational research, but also the changing environment for academic surgeons. Success in Academic Surgery: Basic Science is a valuable text for medical students, surgical residents, junior faculty and others considering a career in surgical research.




Small Clinical Trials


Book Description

Clinical trials are used to elucidate the most appropriate preventive, diagnostic, or treatment options for individuals with a given medical condition. Perhaps the most essential feature of a clinical trial is that it aims to use results based on a limited sample of research participants to see if the intervention is safe and effective or if it is comparable to a comparison treatment. Sample size is a crucial component of any clinical trial. A trial with a small number of research participants is more prone to variability and carries a considerable risk of failing to demonstrate the effectiveness of a given intervention when one really is present. This may occur in phase I (safety and pharmacologic profiles), II (pilot efficacy evaluation), and III (extensive assessment of safety and efficacy) trials. Although phase I and II studies may have smaller sample sizes, they usually have adequate statistical power, which is the committee's definition of a "large" trial. Sometimes a trial with eight participants may have adequate statistical power, statistical power being the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when the hypothesis is false. Small Clinical Trials assesses the current methodologies and the appropriate situations for the conduct of clinical trials with small sample sizes. This report assesses the published literature on various strategies such as (1) meta-analysis to combine disparate information from several studies including Bayesian techniques as in the confidence profile method and (2) other alternatives such as assessing therapeutic results in a single treated population (e.g., astronauts) by sequentially measuring whether the intervention is falling above or below a preestablished probability outcome range and meeting predesigned specifications as opposed to incremental improvement.




Clinical Trials


Book Description

This extensively revised second edition is a unique and portable handbook focusing on clinical trials in surgery. It includes new educational materials addressing the rapid evolution of novel research methodologies in basic science, clinical and educational research. The underlying principles of clinical trials, trial design, the development of a study cohort, statistics, data safety, data monitoring, and trial publication for device and drug trials are also discussed. Clinical Trials provides a comprehensive resource on clinical trials in surgery and describes all the stages of a clinical trial from generating a hypothesis through to trial publication and is a valuable resource for all practicing and trainee academic surgeons.




Economic Evaluation in Clinical Trials


Book Description

It is becoming increasingly important to examine the relationship between the outcomes of a clinical trial and the costs of the medical therapy under study. The results of such analysis can affect reimbursement decisions for new medical technologies, drugs, devices or diagnostics. It can aid companies seeking to make claims about the cost-effectiveness of their product, as well as allowing early consideration of the economic value of therapies which may be important to improving initial adoption decisions. It is also vital for addressing the requirements of regulatory bodies. Economic Evaluation in Clinical Trials provides practical advice on how to conduct cost-effectiveness analyses in controlled trials of medical therapies. This new edition has been extensively rewritten and revised; topics discussed range from design issues such as the types of services that should be measured and price weights, to assessment of quality-adjusted life years. Illustrative materials, case histories and worked examples are included to encourage the reader to apply the methods discussed. These exercises are supported with datasets, programmes and solutions made available online.




50 Studies Every Surgeon Should Know


Book Description

50 Studies Every Surgeon Should Know presents key studies that have shaped the practice of surgery. Selected using a rigorous methodology, the studies cover topics including: vascular, colorectal, bariatric, abdominal, hernial, and endocrine surgery, surgical outcomes, surgical oncology, trauma and surgical critical care, and studies of historical interest. For each study, a concise summary is presented with an emphasis on the results and limitations of the study, and its implications for practice. An illustrative clinical case concludes each review, followed by brief information on other relevant studies. This book is a must-read for health care professionals and anyone who wants to learn more about the data behind clinical practice.




Leadership in Surgery


Book Description

How does one become a successful leader? This book teaches the theories and concepts behind leadership and explains the skills and traits needed to become a good leader. Teaching surgical faculty and trainees (i.e., residents and fellows) how to successfully lead will create more effective surgeon leaders. The skills and theories reviewed in this Volume are highly useful for numerous leadership situations, ranging from heading a committee, leading a research laboratory, directing a clinical effort, leading a Division, leading a Department, among others. By gathering these skills and theories into one comprehensive, portable book, more readers will have access to them.




The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials


Book Description

Randomized clinical trials are the primary tool for evaluating new medical interventions. Randomization provides for a fair comparison between treatment and control groups, balancing out, on average, distributions of known and unknown factors among the participants. Unfortunately, these studies often lack a substantial percentage of data. This missing data reduces the benefit provided by the randomization and introduces potential biases in the comparison of the treatment groups. Missing data can arise for a variety of reasons, including the inability or unwillingness of participants to meet appointments for evaluation. And in some studies, some or all of data collection ceases when participants discontinue study treatment. Existing guidelines for the design and conduct of clinical trials, and the analysis of the resulting data, provide only limited advice on how to handle missing data. Thus, approaches to the analysis of data with an appreciable amount of missing values tend to be ad hoc and variable. The Prevention and Treatment of Missing Data in Clinical Trials concludes that a more principled approach to design and analysis in the presence of missing data is both needed and possible. Such an approach needs to focus on two critical elements: (1) careful design and conduct to limit the amount and impact of missing data and (2) analysis that makes full use of information on all randomized participants and is based on careful attention to the assumptions about the nature of the missing data underlying estimates of treatment effects. In addition to the highest priority recommendations, the book offers more detailed recommendations on the conduct of clinical trials and techniques for analysis of trial data.




Critical Thinking in Clinical Research


Book Description

Critical Thinking in Clinical Research explains the fundamentals of clinical research in a case-based approach. The core concept is to combine a clear and concise transfer of information and knowledge with an engagement of the reader to develop a mastery of learning and critical thinking skills. The book addresses the main concepts of clinical research, basics of biostatistics, advanced topics in applied biostatistics, and practical aspects of clinical research, with emphasis on clinical relevance across all medical specialties.