What is evidence-based medicine?
Short answer
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the practice of making clinical decisions by integrating three components: (1) the best available research evidence, (2) your clinical expertise, and (3) your patient's values and preferences. It follows a 5-step process: Ask, Acquire, Appraise, Apply, and Assess.
Execution Steps
- 1Ask: Formulate a clinical question using the PICO framework.
- 2Acquire: Search for the best available evidence (PubMed, Cochrane Library).
- 3Appraise: Critically evaluate the evidence for validity and applicability.
- 4Apply: Integrate evidence with clinical expertise and patient preferences.
- 5Assess: Evaluate the outcome and refine your practice.
Prompt Template
I am a [specialty] clinician asking: [clinical question]. Help me formulate this as a PICO question and suggest the best evidence sources to search.
Common Failure Points
- Treating EBM as "cookbook medicine" (ignoring clinical judgment and patient preferences)
- Only searching Google instead of medical databases for evidence
- Not checking if the evidence is still current (papers may be retracted or superseded)
FAQ
Composite User Feedback
Medical Student
"The answer pages helped me move from not understanding a paper to knowing which part I should read next."
Clinician
"These guides work because they answer the practical question first, then point me to the workflow I should use."
Medical Librarian
"The strongest pages are the ones that can stand alone as answers and still route people into the right LancetClaw skill."