A network for students interested in evidence-based healthcare
Mental health is one of the biggest causes of disability in the developed world, but lacks parity of esteem or of funding with physical health. Alice Buchan looks at the use of Cochrane evidence in a Department of Health medical report on the subject.
Sense about science are encouraging people to #AskForEvidence for fad diets. #diet #spoofdiets
Alice went to the Cochrane UK and Ireland Annual Symposium in Manchester in April – here are her reflections on its theme: Cochrane Evidence: Useful, Usable, and Used.
Sense about Science have a long-standing campaign encouraging people to #AskForEvidence and in their new Healthy Evidence forum, in partnership with NHS Choices, they ask patients and the general public to get involved!
Systematic reviews take a long time to produce, and are often not up to date. In PLOS Medicine last month, a ‘living systematic review’ was proposed, to reduce the gap between evidence and practice.
In a BMJ editorial last month, Des Spence suggested that EBM may be broken. Alice takes a closer look.
The Lancet has recently published a series of papers looking at problems with waste and inefficiency in research, with recommendations for how these could be overcome.
The universities of Duke and North Carolina have collaborated to produce a very thorough tutorial perfect for anyone new to evidence-based practice.
The final two plenary sessions of October 2013’s Cochrane Colloqium looked at knowledge and health globally, and then to the future.
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.
The second set of plenary talks included topics relevant to students, such as evidence-based medical education.
Videos of the plenary talks from the recent Cochrane colloquium are available online. Alice has had a look at some of the key points raised in the first session.
If you are new to EBM and methods such as critical appraisal, it can be daunting, but the CEBM tools are a useful introduction for beginners.
Alice takes a look at the evidence behind flight socks and other aspects of travel health.
PDQ-Evidence is a database specifically for finding evidence related to public health and health policy.
I'm Alice, a fifth year medical student at the University of Oxford. I did my 'intercalated year' focusing on immunology. At the moment, my particular interests are in immunology, reproductive biology, and obstetrics.
