ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies the purpose of the professional and research literature and how it fits in with the ethos of professional practice. It argues that although the healthcare disciplines do have a clear practice orientation, the professional and research literature is necessary to develop and to progress. The chapter looks at the differences between the professional and the research literature, how to find the literature and how to make sense of it. Medicine becomes scientific whenever a doctor seeks to address a topic using the criteria of objectivity, focus, and the collection and analysis of new data, and when that doctor seeks to publish his or her work by subjecting it to peer review. Systematic review collects all the best research on a particular topic and attempts to make sense of the resulting collection of studies. An existing review of the anecdotal or research literature can be very useful. Conducting a literature review is very like writing an academic essay.
