Second-Order Peer Review of the Medical Literature for Clinical Practitioners

Abstract

Clinical journals support several lines of research communication, including scientist-to-scientist (preliminary studies, the predominant mode), scientist-to-clinician (more definitive, ready-for-application original studies), clinician-to-clinician (review articles), and clinician-to-scientist communication (case reports and case series).¹ These communication lines are not clearly differentiated in journals, and content that is ready for direct clinical application by clinicians of a particular clinical discipline is of low frequency, perhaps contributing to the difficulty that clinicians have in keeping up to date.²