Teaching evidence based medicine

The editorial discusses some elements of teaching and learning evidence based medicine. It comments on the variable level of education that students receive in EBM. Many of our future clinicians will be users of research rather than producers of it and unless students see their role models use EBM in clinical practice they are unlikely to value it as clinically important. Students have to grasp two essential principles of EBM: its empirical approach to optimal clinical decisions and its quantitative expression. This requires some mastery of epidemiology and statistics as well as adequate access to electronic information at the point of care. Integrating the teaching of the steps of EBM with clinical medicine is vital to engage the student in learning about EBM and making it part of the routine of clinical practice.