Evidence based practice: the practicalities of keeping abreast of clinical evidence while in training

Abstract

This paper gives a practical account of why and how to learn to practise evidence based medicine while still in clinical training. It highlights practical benefits to learning the skills (such as passing exams, coping with information overload and helping patients), and explains how to manage each of the four essential steps (asking questions, acquiring information, appraising evidence, and applying the results). Key resources to give the trainee rapid access to evidence based answers are highlighted, as are efficient ways of keeping up to date with the emerging literature.

To Compare PubMed Clinical Queries and UpToDate in Teaching Information Mastery to Clinical Residents: A Crossover Randomized Controlled Trial

“…With increasing medical literature, learning information management is crucial for clinicians to make them competent to find the best evidence in a short time [1]. In this context the important issue for clinicians is identifying sources which can provide them with reliable, relevant and readable information [2].…”

Crafting Practice Guidelines in the World of Evidence-Based Medicine

“…We presented the 7 essential steps in crafting a practice guideline: (1) Defining a topic, (2) Selecting a workgroup, (3) Performing a literature review, (4) Writing the guideline, (5) Peer review, (6) Making plans for review and revision and (7) Dissemination.…”

“…(2, 3) Although making patient-care decisions based on high-impact evidence is a desirable goal, with Medline adding over 600,000 new articles a year (nearly 2000 a day! )(4), it is nearly impossible for any physician to keep abreast of all the relevant evidence from the existing literature. Practice guidelines aim to bridge the gap between research and practice by doing what few physicians have time to do - staying current with the literature.…”

Evidence‐based plastic surgery—“Status Quo”

“…A major obstacle certainly has been the inability of the individual clinician to identify the pertinent literature (and as such “external evidence”) in the face of an exploding number of publications. With more than 600,000 new articles being added to MEDLINE annually, the individual clinician is simply overwhelmed with the task of systematically identifying the pertinent literature for a given clinical problem . It has been estimated that healthcare professionals would have to read 17–20 original articles every day in order to keep abreast of their field .…”