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The challenges of evidence-based medicine: A philosophical perspective

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Abstract

Although evidence-based medicine (EBM) has gained prominence in current medical practice and research, it has also had to deal with a number of problems and inconsistencies. For example, how do clinicians reconcile discordant results of randomized trials or how do they apply results of randomized trials to individual patients? In an attempt to examine such problems in a structured way, this essay describes EBM within a philosophical framework of science. Using this approach, some of the problems and challenges faced by EBM can be explained at a more fundamental level. As well, by employing a similar description of the competing alternative research tradition of clinical medicine, this essay not only highlights the philosophical differences between these two modes of medical practice, but suggests that they, in fact, play a de facto complementary role in current clinical medicine.

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  1. Departments of Surgery and Population Health Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1X8, Canada

    Abhaya V. Kulkarni

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  1. Abhaya V. Kulkarni
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Kulkarni, A.V. The challenges of evidence-based medicine: A philosophical perspective. Med Health Care Philos 8, 255–260 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-004-7345-8

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