First day

Yesterday, after the opening presentation of Paul Glasziou, many presentations followed. One of the speakers was Nina Rydland Olsen from the Centre for Evidence Based Practice, Faculty of Health and Science, Bergen University College in Norway. She talked about Evidence-Based Practice in clinical education. EBP knowledge and skills are teached in academic settings but are not necessarily adequately reinforced during clinical education. Nina Rydland Olsen did a study on experiences, beliefs and attitudes related to use of EBP in clinical education among physiotherapy students, their clinical instructors and teachers. Her conclusions: There is a positive attitude to EBP but there are also obstacles to use it in clinical settings. EBP is found to be demanding. There is a lack of time, lack of computers, lack of background knowledge. Searching and Critical Appraisal is encountered as difficult.
And last but not least: Good role models are missed in clinical education.
This last remark was heard througout the day: Role models are needed.
But also the clinicians present at the conference, who see the need of EBM, find it hard to find or take the time for EBM in the clinic itself.

And more and more presentations. There was Andrew Booth talking on the use of News Items in teaching of critical appraisal. Very inspiring and very fast as most of the presentations. Most presentations were 10 minutes and following each other immediately. So I can’t wait till the presentations are online to see some of them again.
The last (and longer) presentation was from Professor Kevin Mackway-Jones. He didn’t talk about EBM but about Best BETs (Best Evidence Topics) and how it was implemented on his department (emergency department). He emphasized the importance of taking a clinical scenario as a starting point, something nearby. Then people will get interested and see the use of EBM or Best BETs. A nice, inspiring presentation full of humour.