Practice-based clinical research and ethical decision making - Part I: Deciding whether to incorporate practice-based research into your clinical practice

Calls for increasing clinical research in routine care settings aim to improve the empirical and ethical foundations of evidence-based practice. In the treatment and prevention of stroke many troubling management questions remain uninvestigated by the clinical research enterprise. Many practicing physicians perceive available data as having limited applicability to their average patients. Recent efforts by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke seek to establish clinical research networks that will expand the role of private practice physicians in the conduct of research on stroke and other neurological diseases, akin to practice-based research networks supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other National Institutes of Health institutes. Adding clinical research to one's practice of medicine has practical and ethical implications. Furthermore, because of the growth and expansion of clinical research, an practicing physicians should have a fundamental understanding of clinical research and the differences between clinical care and clinical research, even if they are not directly involved in the conduct of clinical research, to appropriately advise their patients. In this and the following article, we offer two practical frameworks to aid physicians contemplating adding clinical research to their everyday practice of medicine.