PARADIGMS AND EXPECTATIONS - THE NATURE OF RESEARCH AND DIAGNOSTICS

Researchers are judged by their best work. No matter what disasters ha ppen at the researcher's bench, there is time to repeat experiments, d iscard ambiguous data and work steadily toward a clearer understanding of the research problem. The work practices of researchers are matter s of personal choice, because the process of peer review prior to publ ication considers only the work that is reported and not all work done by the researcher. On the other hand, the diagnostician's credibility is directly linked to every experiment performed, because a customer is waiting for the result. This paper contrasts aspects of the work of researchers and diagnosticians and concludes that researchers could b enefit from understanding the framework within which diagnosticians op erate. (C) 1998 Australian Society for Parasitology. Published by Else vier Science Ltd.