Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is an approach to medical practice intended to optimize decision-making by emphasizing the use of evidence from well-designed and -conducted research. Continue reading…

Here are some recent research conducted on EBM from the top 10 medical schools in the world as of 2016. You can access a combination of Facebook and website links below.

• Harvard Medical School
  • Highly recommended: Talks@12: Michael Baym and Scott Podolsky discuss the historical recognition of drug resistance, how bacteria become immune to medication and ways to address the problem.
• University of Oxford: CEBM 
• University of Cambridge, School of Clinical Medicine 
  • Cambridge Diabetes Education Programme
• Stanford Medicine
• John Hopkins Medicine 
• University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA): David Geffen School of Medicine 
• University of California, San Francisco (UCSF): School of Medicine
• Yale School of Medicine 
• UCL (University of College London) Medical School 
• Karolinska Institute

Before you attempt a search, always remember the EBM approach summarised in a 5 step process:

1. ask answerable clinical questions 
2. search for the best research evidence
3. critical appraisal of the evidence for validity and relevance
4. decide how to apply the evidence to groups/individuals
5. evaluate the practice

See Fig 2 for more information

Fig 2: EBM 5 step approach. (Adapted from: Straus, SE 2011, Evidence-Based Medicine : How To Practice And Teach It, n.p.: Edinburgh : Elsevier/Churchill Livingstone, 2011)

Here are some useful references from the Web for EBM:

• Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine
• JAMA Users’ Guide to the Medical Literature
• Introduction to EBP Tutorial (Duke University)
• Bond University Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice
• Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Toronto
• UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
• Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council

Our medical library has subscribed to 26 EMB related journals. Here are some commonly used ones for Medicine:

• Evidence-based medicine
• Evidence-based cardiovascular medicine
• Evidence-Based Gastroenterology
• Musculoskeletal Care
• Clinical medicine & research
• International journal of evidence-based healthcare
• Evidence-Based Child Health: A Cochrane Review Journal

Recommended Reading Materials:

• Straus SE et al. (2010). Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM. Churchill Livingstone

• Heneghan, C. and Badenoch, D. (2006) Evidence-Based Medicine Toolkit, 2nd Ed.
  Wiley Blackwell.

• Del Mar et al (2004) Teaching evidence based medicine BMJ 2004; 329 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7473.989 (Published 28 October 2004)

• Heneghan C (2015) Why is teaching EBM so damn hard? http://www.cebm.net/why-is-teaching-ebm-so-damn-hard/

• Teaching Evidence-Based Practice – CEBM videos http://www.cebm.net/teaching-evidence-based-practice/

• Dragan Ilic and Stephen Maloney. Methods of teaching medical trainees evidence-based medicine: a systematic review Medical Education 2014: 48: 124–135

• Bad Pharma: How Medicine is Broken, and How We Can Fix It by Ben Goldacre

• Medical Statistics at a Glance Paperback – by Aviva Petrie, Caroline Sabin

• Statistics Toolkit – by Rafael Perera, Carl Heneghan, and Douglas Badenoch

• How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence-Based Medicine by Trisha Greenhalgh

• Clinical Epidemiology: How to Do Clinical Practice Research by R.Brian Haynes , David L. Sackett , Gordon H. Guyatt

Recommended user guides for Medical Literature:

FROM JAMA

• Users’ guides to the medical literature. II. How to use an article about therapy or prevention. Are the results of the study valid? Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group. JAMA 2015 Dec 1; 270(21):2598-601. Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group: Guyatt GH; Sackett DL; Cook DJ
• Users’ guides to the medical literature. III. How to use an article about a diagnostic test. Are the results of the study valid? JAMA 1994 Feb 2; 271(5):389-91. Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group: Jaeschke R ; Guyatt G ; Sackett DL

FOR SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS

• Systematic reviews: synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions. Ann Intern Med 1997 Mar 1; 126(5):376-80. Cook DJ; Mulrow CD; Haynes RB

• Systematic reviews: critical links in the great chain of evidence. Ann Intern Med 1997 Mar 1; 126(5):389-91. Mulrow CD; Cook DJ; Davidoff F

• Using numerical results from systematic reviews in clinical practice. Ann Intern Med 1997 May 1; 126(9):712-20. McQuay HJ; Moore RA

• Closing the gap between research and practice: an overview of systematic reviews of interventions to promote the implementation of research findings. The Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care Review Group. BMJ 1998 15 Aug; 317(7156): 465-468. Bero LA, Grilli R, Grimshaw JM, Harvey E, Oxman AD, Thomson MA

Databases to familarise yourself with:

• National Library for Health (NLH) Specialist Libraries (including PUBMED)
• TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice) database
• Cochrane Library
• Cochrane Clinical Answers
• Medline-Ovid (EBM Reviews – Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EBM Reviews – Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EBM Reviews – Cochrane Methodology Register,  EBM Reviews – Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EBM Reviews – Cochrane Methodology Register)

Go to the 5 step EMB process to learn more about medical literature reviews.