Today I have a day off, and enthusiastically start to look for a ‘revolutionary’ piece of evidence to introduce into the day unit.  I know that Evidence Based Nursing (http://ebn.bmj.com) and The Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews (www.cochrane.org) are good places to look for quality evidence, but I don’t really know what I am looking for.  I notice that the majority of the reviews concern drug treatments, or the efficacy of certain surgical procedures and that as a student nurse I am not in a position to influence either.  I find an article about knee surgery.  For one awful moment I have visions of trying to confront Mr Shetland the orthopaedic surgeon with my piece of evidence.  Mr Shetland is not an easy man to work with.  He is an excellent surgeon I have no doubt, but I have watched him reduce his theatre staff to tears as he bombarded them with a sustained barrage of criticism.  Rumour has it that his reg walked out on him.  Trying to discuss my piece of evidence with him is unthinkable.  This is an ignominious start to my aspirations to spread the word of evidence based practice.  I have fallen before leaving the starting blocks.  I spend another hour scanning through endless articles about the merits of using indigenous health care workers in treating indigenous children with asthma and other esoteric topics before realising I am wasting my time.  I remember being taught at university about the necessity of a focussed clinical question, and realise that that is what I need.