Every few weeks, we receive an article based on some form of survey. Unfortunately, most of those submissions arc fatally flawed, usually because the survey was performed in a fashion that calls any conclusions into question. The survey in this month's issue, from the American Society of Anesthesiologists Committee on Transfusion Medicine, is likely to be of great interest to many anesthesiologists, but there are problems with its design and conduct. I asked Dr. Burmeister, who has long experience in the design and conduct of surveys, to provide a basic introduction to survey design, from the perspective of a professional survey expert. I would strongly urge anyone considering carrying out a survey in the future to read his comments very closely. Surveys can be a very valuable way of collecting important information; however, like all good experiments, they are rarely as easy or straightforward to perform as they might seem.
