Medical Facts, Errors, and This Book

Abstract

This book presents literally hundreds of facts, based on the conclusions of published research reports, meta-analyses and other sources. We clinicians are responsible for knowing the “facts of the day,” the current evidence that forms the basis of practice. Although some of these facts can be traced to our professional school education, most have become known after we received our degrees. As an example, most of the drugs we use today – the proton pump inhibitors, the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, the statins, the triptans, and more – have been introduced since I received my MD degree, and I have learned about them outside the medical school classroom. Thus for me, and for you, learning about timely and essential facts becomes, in the words of Billings, “the most important part of [our] education.”