How basic is basic science?

Some other possible conclusions come easily to mind. Perhaps, if we’re really concerned about students’ learning evidence-based medicine, then we should teach it more or better. On the other hand I am one of many who have joined the anti-EBM movement (Norman 1999). In my view, the fundamental irony remains that, even though it made the BMJ’s ‘‘Top 15 Medical Innovations of all Time’’ list in 2006, it remains saddled by the paradox that it, uniquely among the innovations, contains the word ‘‘evidence’’ in its title, yet cannot marshal any evidence whatsoever that EBM makes any difference to patient outcomes. Of course, EBMers are masters at obfuscating about why such a study could not be done—too many confounders, educational research is too soft to meet the rigorous standards of EBM, etc. Methinks the maiden doth protest too much. As for communication skills, we might indeed get our house in order by trying a little harder to admit students with high academic ability and good communication skills (not good communication skills instead of academic ability as Whitcomb argued in another editorial (Whitcomb 2006a, b)—there are lots of folks around who have both (Eva and Reiter 2004), to teach them well, and perhaps most important, to role model caring and compassion (often in trying environments, Norman 2007). Nevertheless, despite Whitcomb’s non sequitur argument, basic science teaching, occupying as it does a huge proportion of the preclinical curriculum, is under constant