1
i’d like to see the end of the term Evidence Based Medicine.
i don’t want to hear this term dictated to me
i want to see the evidence and make up my own mind
EBM is gimmicky
It’s like saying science based science
or indeed SuperMedicine a term a marketer would use
It’s either medicine or it not
Our patients are the ultimate judges of our efficacy
All the “evidence” in the world means little if it doesn’t work for them
Another issue i have with the term EBM used in our generation
is that it spits on the work of our teachers, Jonas Salk, Papanicolaou (PAP) and Frances Oldham Kelsey etc(the researcher prevented thalidomide use in the US)
what sort of medicine were they practising if ours is evidence based?
since it’s inception, all sorts of hearsay and bias has been taken as fact under the EBM brand, extrapolated to distant populations regardless of local demographics, ie specificity
even the framingham study,has it’s limitations, great study etc,
the whole world’s cardiovascular risk profile is linked to one study?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham,_Massachusetts#Demographics
but what i like about cochrane is it looks at all the studies, filters out the infomercials and industry backed ads paraded as research and makes suggestions
2
cochrane
and scrutiny
also realise there are grades of evidence
RCT gold standard, ok sort of
most medical training is years of anecdotal evidence cases, that eventually forms something substantial
a patient can give you anecdotal evidence that every time he eats peanuts he gets anaphylaxis, you gonna ignore that?
3
recognise proforma research
find and use reputable journal
BMJ NEMJ Lancet etc
Insert gimmicky research brand name Hexus hocus pocus blah blah
that tells you nothing about the study
make sure it’s an RCT, people switch off after this
insert bias
look for 15% improvement versus placebo or current cheap Rx
charge 400% more
????
profit
4
avoid gimmicky research names
that’s marketing not science
for god’s sake i found a study channeling C3PO
we are supposed to be scientists
we ain’t peddling dishwasher liquid
Also if the study cant come up with a simple coherent study name
How the heck can you rely on them to do a reliable study?
iero7 