Here’s my answer – along the lines of the introduction
I give our medical students:
In medicine, we are continually making decisions, and
if medicine is to be a science or a “learned”
profession, we need to think critically about HOW and
WHY we make those decisions. There are a number of
potential approaches to making decisions: 1) Tradition
(“we’ve always done it this way”, “my teachers did it
this way”); 2) Convention (“everyone else always does
it this way” – ie, going with the crowd), 3) Belief or
Dogma (“I believe the natural way is best”), 4)
“Evidence-based” – that is based on some sort of
systematic assessment of evidence.
Further, I discuss with my students the fact that you
can look at evidence as simply ANY observation about
the nature of the world. In the medical literature, we
call a single, isolated instance of something an
“anecdote” (or, if published, a “case report”). If
you take a bunch of observations and group them
together, we have a “case series”. You can go on up
from there in terms of the rigor, systematization, and
thoroughness of evidence evaluation up to the
double-blinded randomized trial or the meta-analysis.
ALL observations can be considered “evidence” – it’s
just a matter of asking what the QUALITY of your
evidence is.
So, I see evidence-based medicine as the effort to
critically examine the reasons we do what we do, and
the information or evidence that supports it. In one
sense, ALL medicine is “Evidence-Based Medicine” –
it’s just that if you practice medicine without
thinking critically about what you do and without
looking for high-quality evidence (or at least the
highest quality available) then you are practice
medicine based on very LOW-quality evidence.
Bill C
--- Olive Goddard <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Here's a question some of you might like to respond
> to.
>
> All good wishes,
>
> Olive
>
> >>> "Gang Jiang" <[log in to unmask]>
> 29/06/2006 16:16 >>>
>
> Dear Sir/Madam:
>
> I am very interested in evidence based medicine.
> Could you please tell
> me why EBM is important? Can a physician practise
> medicine without
> knowing EBM?
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Gang Jiang
>
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Bill Cayley, Jr, MD MDiv [log in to unmask]
Augusta Family Medicine Home Address
207 W Lincoln 3433 McIvor St
Augusta, WI 54722 Eau Claire, WI 54701
Work: 715-286-2270 Home: 715-830-0932
Page: 715-838-7940 Cell: 715-828-4636
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