This paper examines four challenges that proponents of evidence-based medicine (EBM) must address to establish its claims to universality and legitimacy. It is argued that the failures to meet the evidence-of-effectiveness challenge, the authority challenge, the conflicting hierarchy challenge, and the definition-of-evidence challenge diminish arguments for the superiority of EBM. In the second...

BACKGROUND Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has become standard approach in medicine. Patients and health authorities increasingly claim active patient roles in decision making. Education to cope with these roles might be useful. We investigated the feasibility, acceptability and possible impact of EBM training courses for patient and consumer representatives. METHODS We designed a generic one-w...

Rationale, aims and objectives Evidence-based medicine (EBM) claims to be based on 'evidence', rather than 'intuition'. However, EBM's fundamental distinction between quantitative 'evidence' and qualitative 'intuition' is not self-evident. The meaning of 'evidence' is unclear and no studies of quality exist to demonstrate the superiority of EBM in health care settings. This paper argues that, d...

OBJECTIVE To investigate physicians' perceptions and practices towards Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and physicians perceived barriers in one institute of Saudi Arabia. METHODS One hundred seventeen practicing physicians at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah were included in the study. A validated questionnaire was used for collecting data. The questionnaire had four parts and include...

The major criticisms and limitations of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) appearing in the literature over the past decade can be summarized and categorized into five recurring themes. The themes include: reliance on empiricism, narrow definition of evidence, lack of evidence of efficacy, limited usefulness for individual patients, and threats to the autonomy of the doctor/patient relationship. Ana...

UNLABELLED The concept of evidence based medicine (EBM) as the integration of clinical expertise, patient values and the best evidence was introduced by David Sackett in the 1980s. Scientific literature in medicine is often marked by expansion, acummulation and quick expiration. Reading all important articles to keep in touch with relevant information is impossible. Finding the best evidence th...

BACKGROUND Evidence-based medicine (EBM), a comprehensive method to support clinical decision making by using evidence, has been instrumental in clinical specialties but not yet in insurance medicine. AIMS We developed and evaluated a workshop on EBM for Dutch social insurance physicians who perform disability evaluations. METHODS Sixty-six social insurance physicians followed a 1-day intro...

Interest in evidence based medicine (EBM) has grown exponentially, and professional organisations and training programmes have shifted their agenda from whether to teach EBM to how to teach it. However, there is little evidence about the effectiveness of different methods, and this may be related to the lack of a conceptual framework within which to structure evaluation strategies. In this arti...