evidence-based-medicine

How to read, understand and write great medical research

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These excel­lent tips are kind­ly shared by RK Shar­ma and HL Ogle, two med­ical stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Exeter, aim­ing to clear up many of the inac­cu­rate assump­tions of how dif­fi­cult pub­lish­ing is and pro­vide a clear guide for stu­dents to begin their own writ­ing journeys.

#1. Find your why: Evi­dence-based med­i­cine means that these are vital skills, and it has long been thought that the habits should be learned from ear­ly on. [Read more…] about How to read, under­stand and write great med­ical research

Grand Rounds: 22 Health and Medicine Questions and Answers

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Wel­come to Grand Rounds, the week­ly col­lec­tion of best health and med­ical blog posts. This week we invite you to enjoy a broad range of insights, tips, and first-hand sto­ries, pre­sent­ed as a Q&A con­ver­sa­tion with blog­gers will­ing to answer, below, a total of 22 good questions.

On Health and Medicine

  1. What can one-word pre­scrip­tions deliver
  2. How does food pro­cess­ing change food´s nutri­tion­al value
  3. Can diet Increas­es Risk of ADHD
  4. Is alco­holism an illness
  5. What´s bet­ter: steady dete­ri­o­ra­tion over 10 years, or sym­p­­tom-free life for 9 years fol­lowed by rapid dete­ri­o­ra­tion in year 10

On Patient Life

  1. As we talk about wellness…what about devel­op­ing self-compassion
  2. Can patients with chron­ic pain still live a full life
  3. What is the patient-doc­tor eti­quette for using Face­book and Twitter
  4. Should patients in an ide­al world con­tract direct­ly with their doctors
  5. What are patient advo­cates focus­ing on these days

On Health Care pro­fes­sion­als [Read more…] about Grand Rounds: 22 Health and Med­i­cine Ques­tions and Answers

Therapy vs. Medication, Conflicts of Interest, and Intimidation

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What start­ed as an aca­d­e­m­ic dis­pute regard­ing dis­clo­sure of con­flict of inter­est is now snow­balling into the main­stream media, due to the over-reac­tion by JAMA edi­tors as report­ed in this Wall Street Jour­nal blog post, JAMA edi­tor calls Crit­ic a “Nobody and a Noth­ing”

In sum­ma­ry, Dr. Jonathan Leo, the “Crit­ic”, dared to draw atten­tion to 2 impor­tant points regard­ing a study com­par­ing the effi­ca­cy of ther­a­py vs. med­ica­tion pub­lished in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (JAMA) — one of the most pres­ti­gious sci­en­tif­ic publications:

1) The study results were pre­sent­ed and report­ed in a biased way, since they favored one spe­cif­ic inter­ven­tion, a drug, while ignor­ing anoth­er one, ther­a­py-based, that had equal­ly sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant effects.

2) Both the lead author of the study and one of the main experts asked to com­ment on the study in sev­er­al media out­lets had undis­closed and unre­port­ed con­flicts of inter­est. JAMA could have done a 5‑minute Google search to iden­ti­fy and report the con­flict of inter­est of the lead author (received a vari­ety of rev­enues from the drugmaker).

Dr. Leo has sum­ma­rized the con­tin­u­ing mat­ter in sev­er­al impres­sive let­ters. The 2 main ones, in chrono­log­i­cal order:

Clin­i­cal Tri­als of Ther­a­py vs. Med­ica­tion: Even in a Tie, Med­ica­tion Wins(BMJ)

- “Cen­tral to the idea of evi­dence-based med­i­cine is that the choic­es made by patients and doc­tors to use a cer­tain treat­ment should at least in part be based on sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished in peer reviewed aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nals. For a patient diag­nosed with [Read more…] about Ther­a­py vs. Med­ica­tion, Con­flicts of Inter­est, and Intimidation