The MEDICS initiative aims to ensure a fundamental level of medical statistics and risk communication for medical students. Lathan Liou, founder of MEDICS, invites S4BE students to get involved.
In this blog, Giorgio Karam examines the evidence on antihypertensive drugs for primary prevention – when do we start treatment?
This blog examines what heterogeneity is, why it matters, how you can identify and measure it and how you can then deal with it.
Pain is a recurrent undesirable side effect in orthodontic treatment. This blog by Izabel Oliveira introduces pharmacological and non-pharmacological alternatives for orthodontic pain management.
Healthcare guidelines are an invaluable aspect of evidence-based healthcare. This blog by Neelam sheds some light on what a Guideline is, and what is isn’t.
In this blog, Kamal Pandit discusses the findings of three recent Cochrane reviews which assessed the effectiveness of treatments for Coronary heart disease (CHD). He adds personal experience to provide context to treatment of a condition which is the single leading cause of death globally (WHO 2014).
This blog, written by Leonard Goh, was the winner of Cochrane Malaysia and Penang Medical College’s recent evidence-based medicine blog writing competition. Leonard has written an insightful and informative piece to answer the question: ‘Evidence-based health practice: a fairytale or reality’.
This blog follows on from Ammar’s previous post on meta-analysis, and provides further details on the history, value and implementation of this approach.
This blog discusses the issue of statistical significance (whether a difference, such as an improvement in symptoms, is unlikely to have occurred by chance) vs. clinical significance (whether a difference, such as an improvement in symptoms, is meaningful and patient to patients).
This blog discusses the problem of confirmation bias: our tendency to favour answers that confirm ideas and beliefs that we already have. It also discusses two possible solutions to this problem: 1) referring to systematic reviews, which take account of ALL the available evidence and 2) actively seeking out information which may challenge our preconceptions.
This article highlights the importance of the results of Cochrane’s new systematic review on the efficacy of Methylphenidate for ADHD in children and adolescents.
Currently decisions made on treatment of bronchiectasis are based on guidelines which have a very poor evidence base. Read more to find out!
Heidi reviews ‘Systematic Reviews in Health Care: A Practical Guide’ written by Paul Glasziou, Les Irwig, Chris Bain and Graham Colditz
In this post you are going to figure out how to interpret the evaluation of diagnostic tests through sensitivity and specificity.
Let’s be honest, Evidence-Based Medicine is great. But it’s not perfect. Issues such as the lack of publishing of negative results need to be understood and tackled. In this Youtube video, Prof David Nealy does just that.
Iván Murrieta Álvarez takes an in depth look at determining the probability that a patient has a certain illness, using only a pen and paper.
Do placebos really promote physiological change or is it just the patient’s perspective? How are placebos used in practice? And how ethical is it to use placebos in clinical trials?
You probably have heard a debate between clinical judgment and Evidence Based Medicine. Is there a real reason to oppose these two concepts? See here for more…
Have you heard of accelerated recovery programs, but aren’t sure what they are? Or are you wondering if they are safe and effective? If so, check out this post about the use of accelerated recovery programs following knee arthroplasty.
With this scheme, NICE are aiming to improve the use of evidence by future healthcare professionals by training students to teach their peers how to find the most trustworthy, up to date information.
Ammar takes a detailed look at CEBM’s evidence-based resources!
A critical appraisal of an article investigating the applicability of High Intensity Exercise Training Programs (HIT) on patients in residential care facilities who have moderate-severe physical and cognitive impairments and who are dependent in at least one activity of daily living (ADL).
Kat’s article review discusses Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis a progressive disease involving degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord and what muscle exercises can help patients.
GATE (Graphic Approach To Evidence Based Medicine) is a simplified diagram that is used to explain any quantitative study; from an RCT to a cohort.
Evidence-based medicine is not just about applying a systematic review letter for letter – but the ‘art’ of evidence-based medicine is in applying the science.
Evidence Aid provides brief summaries of evidence to assist decision makers in disasters and other humanitarian emergencies.
Want to know what PICO stands for and how to use it? You’ve come to the right place.
Whether you couldn’t get enough of the rolling coverage of the royal birth, or couldn’t wait for it to be over, I have here for you a roundup of some of the recent systematic reviews and evidence related to pregnancy and childbirth (royal or otherwise).
David writes about the UK Government’s recent plans to introduce health checks.
Conducting trials where the trialled therapeutic must be commenced urgently raises specific practical and ethical problems. Here I discuss a recent New England Journal of Medicine paper looking at the use of intracranial pressure monitoring for severe traumatic brain injury as an example of how these issues may affect a trial’s utility and how this can be managed.
Want to find out how to evaluate a randomised controlled trial? This is the perfect resource for you, brought to you by CASP Tools.
Want to find out more about treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Here, the PACE trial for CFS is evaluated using the CASP Tools for Randomised Controlled Trials.
Applying the evidence in clinical practice may not always be easy. This slideshow looks at the roles of patient choice and other factors in making good evidence-based clinical decisions.
This slideshow shows how the data generated in trials and analysed in systematic reviews can be applied in clinical practice.
NICE (UK) provides thorough, comprehensive summaries of the investigation and management of common presentation in a primary care setting.
The NHS Evidence website provides a great starting block for many clinical questions, gathering information from several NHS websites as well as several journals.
This is an information skills tutorial that provides the opportunity for students to learn more about searching for information
Paper from the US Institute of Medicine on how clinicians should communicate with patients on evidence-based medicine.
PowerPoint by Dr Amanda Burls, on randomized controlled trials and meta-analysis, described through four real-life examples.
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