Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is an approach to medical practice intended to optimize decision-making by emphasizing the use of evidence from well designed and conducted research.
why is it important?
EBM entails the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.
EBM advocates that to the greatest extent possible, decisions should be based on evidence, not just the beliefs of practitioners, experts, or administrators.
EBM tries to assure that a clinician's opinion, which may be limited by knowledge gaps or biases, is supplemented with all available knowledge from the scientific literature so that best practice can be determined and applied.
WHAT ARE CASE REPORTS?
In medicine, a case report is a detailed account of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. This may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describes an unusual or novel occurrence.
Case reports have little statistical validity due to their limited scope and sample size, but can explore individual cases in-depth, presenting interesting and valuable learning opportunities.
HOW DOES AN EBM CASE REPORT JOURNAL FIT INTO YOUR MEDICAL EDUCATION AND PRACTICE?
The McMaster EBM Case Report Journal is a project that brings together real case reports with a focus on how EBM and evidence-based practices are integrated into diagnoses, treatments, and other medical decisions.
Through this project, authors will collect real-world cases they encounter during clerkship or in practice and present them in the context of EBM; how and why current best-evidence relates to each case.
Case reports accepted to the EBM Case-Report Journal will be peer-reviewed, and the Journal will be published once a year.
Why should you participate?
EBM is increasingly important in today’s evolving and complex world of medical care, and tomorrow’s professionals should possess an understanding of how to best apply these concepts to their own practice or patients.
By participating in the EBM Case Report Journal program, we offer a chance to develop these skills and hone interpretations of evidence as it relates to your real-world experiences, as well as garner authorship credit for your publication.