Description:
Medical practice is diverse but has some common tasks. One of these is making the best use of available research evidence to diagnose, prevent and treat disease. Keeping up with new research information and incorporating it into clinical decision-making is the task of evidence-based medicine. Students will become acquainted with the basic principles of evidence-based medicine. Students will learn to judge the level of evidence and this will enable them to critically appraise scientific literature. Students will focus on three main questions, which run through the course:
1) are the results of this study valid?
2) are the valid results of this study important?
3) are the valid, important results of this study applicable to my patient?
Objective(s):
Acquisition of a thorough understanding of principles of evidence based medicine which will enable students to perform and/or critically appraise (other) scientific research projects.
More specifically:
Critically appraise clinical epidemiological research papers.
Examination:
These courses lead up to final assignment II: writing a research article.