From my experience most researchers don't actually read most papers, we just don't have time. The figures are what tells the real story, not necessarily the interpretation of the authors.
It was almost as if many of the authors couldn't do the kind of math expected of high schoolers that apply to university to study science.
My takeaway was 1) to deeply distrust doctors as scientists (and as people who could think) and 2) mostly ignore the text surrounding the tables and graphs and just go straight to the data.