An introduction to the biostatistical technique of resampling

This article will introduce resampling method to burn injury researchers and care givers. With the use of a data set taken from a published burn injury research project, this technique is extensively described and fully illustrated in a stepwise fashion by tables and figures. The recent exponential growth in the use of this method has produced a concurrent need to understand its fundamentals. Researchers, reviewers, and care givers will need to be familiar with resampling to evaluate the published results of various studies. Additionally, as burn research continues to focus on the molecular and cellular aspects of injury and healing, data analysis by resampling might prove to be a useful adjunct to standard biostatistical methods. Many useful links on the Internet (starting at www.statistics.com) can be followed for further readings, software, and tutorials.