The Need for Evidence-Based Medicine

As physicians, whether serving individual patients or populations, we always have sought to base our decisions and actions on the best possible evidence. The ascendancy of the randomized trial heralded a fundamental shift in the way that we establish the clinical bases for diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics. The ability to track down, critically appraise (for its validity and usefulness), and incorporate this rapidly growing body of evidence into one's clinical practice has been named 'evidence-based medicine' (EBM).