A Brief History of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) and the Contributions of Dr David Sackett

In January 2007 the British Medical Journal contacted an online poll of its readers, and evidence-based medicine (EBM) was ranked seventh among the 15 most important milestones that shaped modern medicine. These 15 milestones included such things as the introduction of antibiotics, immunization, sanitation, and radiology.1 A Google search today on websites pertaining to anything evidence-based will be in the millions.EBM is defined as integration of the best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values.2,3 An extension of EBM that is more relevant today is Evidence-Based Clinical Practice, which takes into account the healthcare setting and circumstances in which we practice.4The EBM movement started in 1981 when a group of clinical epidemiologists at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada), led by David Sackett, published the first of a series of articles in the Canadian Medical Association Journal advising physicians how to appraise the medical literature.5 The actual term “evidence-based medicine” was first coined by Gordon Guyatt, the Program Director of Internal Medicine at McMaster University from 1990 to 1997, who was and one of Sackett's mentees in 1991.6Prior to that the Levels of Evidence (LOE) was introduced by the Canadian Task Force on Periodic Health Examination, which was founded in 1976 as a result …