Wheres the ethnography?
• Brenda A Roche, Researcher • Amy Scammell, Edward Parkes, Carolin Hagelskamp Battersea Research Group, Bolingbroke Hospital, Wakehurst Road, London. SW11 6HN. As researchers who specialise in qualitative methodologies we read with great interest the recent study by Katja Taxis and Nick Barber (BMJ, 326, pp684-687). Whilst we appreciate the attempts of the authors to shed some light on the nature of intravenous drug errors, and an often neglected area of clinical practice, we were left somewhat perplexed as to the authors’ understanding of ‘ethnography’. Whilst we are aware that the use of qualitative methods in medical related research is relatively new, we are concerned, as are others, about the quality of research that is being published in this area. As published, this study is not an ethnographic study and is barely qualitative. The authors have conducted an observational study, one it seems with roots in quantitative not qualitative methodology. This is most obvious from the out
