Evidence-Based Medicine Matters

Professor Andy Adam

Professor of Radiology

Evidence is what distinguishes medicine from quackery. Evidence is what allows us to practice safely, to improve methods that work and to discard ones that are ineffective. Patients trust doctors because they believe that they will act in their best interests: implicit in this trust is the expectation that they will base their recommendations on evidence. However, a doctor who thinks that we understand everything about the human body is either arrogant or a fool. We must be prepared to review unexpected results and to reinterpret evidence, as that is what will allow medicine to develop and improve. After all, Lord Kelvin thought that X-rays were a hoax. And if anyone had suggested treating duodenal ulcers with antibiotics when I was a medical student he would have been thought a crank. Doctors should be scientists, but should keep an open mind.