Past, present and future of EBM

Professor Paul Glasziou did the opening presentation on the Teachers & Developers of Evidence-Based Healthcare Conference. He gave a short history of EBM. Talked about the present. EBM is spreading we saw on a map of the world, but unevenly. He gave us some statistics on the impact of searching on correctness of answers to clinincal questions. On right answers changing to wrong after searching, wrong to right, right to right and wrong to wrong. Some numbers were quite shocking, but mostly due to inexperience.
EBM is covered on most UK medical schools. But practiced and assessed a lot lesser. And that was a main thread through the day.
Glasziou referred to the Sicily statement on evidence-based curriculum.
About the future: EBM is evolving. It needs refining the rules of evidence. Some immediatie & dramatic effects don’t need RCTs. It needs increasing attention on the “leaks” from research to practice.
He called up to come to the Sicily International EBM Meeting. It’s happening every two year and the next is in November 2009.
At the end of his presentation he named the website Nettingtheevidence: links to all kind of evidence-based stuff.