We were facing a problem: Research courses usually begin by guiding students to search for ideas and problems upon which to build their research projects. This is not an easy matter, especially when the student-researcher’s options are limited to systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Because of the intense global competition, and the power of these research methodologies and their relative ease of application (logistically and legally), finding a novel, innovative idea on which to conduct a study becomes extremely difficult—especially for newcomers to the world of medical scientific research.
Taha and I began thinking about solutions and reviewing all research methodologies until we were struck by this thought: systematic reviews are conducted only on studies of specific levels, each review collecting a set of studies that describe a large number of patients (the study sample).
But this approach carries an essential problem: for the researcher to be able to conduct a systematic review, there needs to exist a huge number of studies that have progressed up the evidence-based medicine hierarchy, reaching at least clinical trials and cohort studies. What about rare diseases, which have only a few case reports?
Here came the idea — a systematic review of case reports! We began reading and researching, and after several days, we came up with the first formulation of a research methodology that allows for conducting such a “systematic review of case reports” addressing a major problem faced by many new students and researchers, or those who lack access to direct data and primary studies.
Today, the paper explaining this methodology has been published, bearing the signature of Taha & Abuawwad, after four years of continuous research work.