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Book reviews
Author(s) -
Blaney David
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2923.1998.03241.x
Subject(s) - citation , library science , computer science , information retrieval
Evidence-based medicine is becoming the new medical deity. There is a rapidly growing literature on the subject and it is almost heresy now in medical circles to question it. Like many new cults it has shrouded itself in a language which is in danger of excluding practising doctors. The main proponents of the creed are in danger of alienating a signi®cant minority of doctors because of their evangelical approach. This coupled with, on occasions, the impenetrable nature of the subject has driven many doctors away from what is essentially a very useful and practical tool. Trisha Greenhalgh is well known to many readers of the British Medical Journal for her concise, moving and entertaining clinical anecdotes. Her approach to medicine is a sensitive balance between the scienti®c and the humane. She comes over as a compassionate, thoughtful and scienti®c doctor. In her dedication in this book she states that she was asked by Ruth Holland (the Book Reviews Editor of the BMJ who was tragically killed in 1996) to write a book to demystify the important but often inaccessible subject of evidencebased medicine. It is no exaggeration to say that she has achieved this. The book, based on a series of articles ®rst published in the BMJ, is a clear, thoughtful and highly accessible approach to the subject. The book is extremely well written and, despite one or two typographical errors which can be readily forgiven, is unequalled at the present time. The book is designed for the clinician but also has immense value for the teacher. It demysti®es many of the more inaccessible parts of the creed and introduces the reader in a selective and gentle way to some of the more esoteric and dif®cult concepts inherent in it. The book is extremely well referenced and the author constantly acknowledges her own limitations and directs the reader to other texts for more detailed study of the topics under discussion. Dr Samuel Johnson once said, `I have always suspected that the reading is right which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong which cannot without so much labour appear to be right.' On that note, go out and buy this book. It will be money well spent and, if you remain an unbeliever after reading this, then nothing, I fear, will convert you.