Testing Treatments: Better Research for Better Healthcare

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How do we know whether a particular drug, therapy or operation really works, and how well? How reliable is the clinical evidence? Such timely and pressing questions are raised and resolved in this probing inquiry into modern clinical research, with far-reaching implications for daily medical practice and patient care. What emerges from this study is the surprising truth that clinical research is neither as unbiased, nor as relevant as patients have every right to expect, but that everyone – patients, doctors and researchers – can do much to change current practice and achieve better healthcare.

Aimed at both patients and professionals, Testing Treatments builds a lively and thought-provoking argument for better, more reliable, more relevant research, with unbiased or ‘fair’ trials, and explains how patients can work with doctors to achieve this vital goal. Expertly and thoroughly researched, the fast-moving commentary explores a vast range of revealing case-studies, enlivened throughout by entertaining anecdotes and vivid eyewitness accounts drawn from the direct experience of patients, practitioners and researchers. Often startling, at times unsettling, but never pessimistic, Testing Treatments remains essentially pragmatic and constructive in tone, urging everyone to take an active part in changing conditions, and describing what practical steps doctors and patients can together take to improve current research and future treatment.