Webinar given by Martin Burton, Director of the UK Cochrane Centre, on the addressing uncertainties in treatment decisions. He also suggests some good books and websites.
Understanding uncertainty is a site from the Winton programme based at the University of Cambridge, UK, that encourage healthy criticism of the statistics the media gives us.
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.
Your patient has mild hypertension. What should you do?
Treat the hypertension.
Okay, how should you treat the hypertension?
Well, let’s start with HCTZ, that’s well-tolerated.
What will that do?
It’s a diuretic; it’ll help her get rid of the extra volume.
Okay, what will that do?
It’ll lower her blood pressure.
Okay, what will that do?
What do you mean, what will that do?
What will lowering her blood pressure do?
It’ll lower her blood pressure! Seriously—who are you anyway?
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