In the early 1800s, Karl Baedeker, a German publisher, launched a series of travel guidebooks. By the twentieth century, the guidebooks had achieved such international fame that his name became synonymous with the genre. As clinicians wade into the flood of clinical research being published, a guidebook can be a handy navigational aid. In this article, we offer a Baedeker for reading the literature, an approach distilled from our three decades of clinical practice and research experience. Interested readers can find more detail in our recent series on research methods in The Lancet (1–11). Reading research is mandatory if a clinician is to keep up. With greater age and experience, clinical practice should improve. Paradoxically, however, greater age and clinical experience often translate into rusty practice. As has been shown for treatment of hypertension, one of the strongest determinants of appropriate practice is number of years since medical school graduation; stated alternatively, practice quality deteriorates over time (12, 13). Keeping current is difficult after leaving formal training, and that difficulty may be greater for those who practice in smaller communities (14). If one cannot (or chooses not to) read, then one’s practice is condemned to becoming obsolete. This indirectly hurts patients. A second benefit of critical reading of clinical research is appropriate adoption (or rejection) of new technologies. Obstetrics and gynecology has a long, blemished record of adoption and dissemination of new tests and procedures without evidence of benefit (15). Episiotomy, one of the most common operations performed on adults in the last century, swept into practice based on DeLee’s analogy that childbirth is tantamount to impalement on a pitchfork (16). Urinary estriol measurement to monitor a fetus thought to be in jeopardy has been replaced by an even more expensive and cumbersome test (nonstress testing) for which no evidence of benefit exists either (17). Electronic fetal monitoring took U.S. obstetrics by storm in the absence of demonstrable benefit; a quarter century of study has failed to show any lasting benefit to babies (18), and the poor predictive value of worrisome tracings has needlessly driven up the cesarean delivery rate. Liquid-based cervical cytology screening has not been shown to reduce cervical cancer incidence or mortality, and the cost per case of cancer detected is higher with this approach than with conventional cytology (19). Ironically, poor women at highest risk of this cancer may not be able to afford the screening (20). Reports of new laparoscopy operations have recently been retracted by an editor, because the reported information could not be corroborated (21, 22). This hurt patients as well. While reading clinical research is clearly important, the task is daunting. First, the volume being published is overwhelming, with an estimated 25,000 biomedical journals in print. One challenge is picking and choosing what to read. In general, most readers should limit themselves to articles that are both relevant to their practices and likely to be of high scientific value. These two criteria will immediately narrow the field. Once an article is selected, another problem emerges: many clinicians in obstetrics and gynecology report that they cannot critically read the literature (23). Our graduates leave their training full of the Correspondence to: Family Health International, P.O. Box 13950, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. Email: dgrimes@fhi.org