This is it – a leap from the descriptive to the inferential. We are leaving the comfort of the sample we have collected data on and we’re about to make a statement that relates to the world beyond: we are inferring stuff. Annoyingly, this first step is a phrase disturbingly close to another. The ‘standard error […]
Latest articles
#ADC_JC – the story of our first twitter journal club
This month saw the start of #ADC_JC – the Archives of Disease in Childhood twitter journal club. The aim was to engage paediatric health professionals in social media and discuss a journal paper on twitter in real time. […]
StatsMiniBlog: Parametric? :-/ Like paramedic or paralegal?
We have – in this microseries of miniblogs – looked at data distributions and describing what we’ve got. We’re ready for the big leap now; from description into inference. What can we say about how our data relate to the world at large? And the first thing to do is to clarify a deeply unhelpful […]
A little bit of formula?
Exclusive breastfeeding is regarded by WHO and by most, if not all, paediatric academies, as the ideal for newborns and infants up to 6 months old. It is also recommended that breastfeeding begins as soon as possible after birth. That is why the small pilot study by Flaherman et al is both interesting and controversial. […]
#ADC_JC : Archives of Disease in Childhood’s twitter journal club.
The Archives of Disease in Childhood’s twitter journal club started in June 2013 and will discuss one paper each month (@ADC_JC) The twitter journal club will be facilitated by Tessa Davis, who is a paediatric registrar currently on Out-Of-Programme Time in Sydney Children’s Hospital. (Follow her on twitter @tessardavis as well!) Erm, I don’t know […]
Guest Blog: Depression in paediatric chronic fatigue syndrome
In the next of our guest blog posts, paediatric mental health expert @MaxDavie has leapt into a discussion of one of the Archive’s recent editors choice articles, “Depression in paediatric chronic fatigue syndrome“. While I don’t have a huge feel for the CFS/ME market, being largely responsible for anthracyline induced cardiotoxicity and ifosphamide tubulopathies, I […]
StatsMiniBlog: Transformations
There are a host of things in the world that undergo transformations. These are often physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. But numbers need love too, and we are getting to know that deep, deep down, we all love Normality. […]
An odd way with odds ratio
Can you spot anything wrong with this graph? It’s from a paper in a major paediatric journal. I’ve removed it from context, because for me it was a helpful lesson in spotting something important. I’ve removed the labelling from the X axis, because I’m going to be a bit unkind about the paper, but in short it […]
StatsMiniBlog: Size and variability
Now you now know you continuous data can be Normal or not Normal (but we might be able to tweak that … see the next post) and we’d like to be able to describe it clearly and accurately. We could just reproduce every bit, but we really want to compress it to get the meat […]
What’s in a name, Part III
I’ve written previously about how doctors should refer to each other, and also about how patients and their families might refer to doctors. It reminded me that there are ways that people need doctors to be – to behave, dress, talk – in order to get the best out of a professional relationship. […]