Nursing

Why do you need to know how to do research and sort through the biomedical literature as a nurse?

Research provides the "evidence" in "evidence-based-practice". 

The evidence pyramid shows some study designs in health and medicine in order of quality. Evidence syntheses like systematic reviews and meta-analyses carefully combine the results of many different studies on the same topic. These are often used to create clinical practice guidelines, which can be seen at the top of the pyramid. 

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Research_design_and_evidence.svg

Familiarity with study designs and their relative quality is important for identifying the best research available to incorporate into practice. This leads to better health outcomes for patients. However, it is important to remember that all study designs will not be available for all patients and conditions. There are currently many randomized clinical trials and systematic reviews on COVID-19, but this would not have been true in the early days of the pandemic. In March 2020, the best available evidence to assist patients may have been case studies. This is why a newer model proposes an "evidence funnel" in place of the traditional pyramid. 

Source: https://www.nnlm.gov/training/class/evidence-pyramid-problem