Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow: [1]

Getting things done can be so hard. Dreaming up what might be done is, in contrast, easy. T S Eliot put it thus: "Between the idea/And the reality/Between the motion/And the act/Falls the shadow." This BMJ illustrates that theme. For those of us who produce the BMJ the completed journal is the reality, but for readers it is the idea. If any benefit is to flow from the journal then much work remains to be done. Simply disseminating information won't achieve change.

We know about the ineffectiveness of simply disseminating information from the overview by Lisa Bero and others of interventions to promote the implementation of research findings...