Evidence‐based medicine in plastic surgery: where did it come from and where is it going?

Objectives Evidence‐based medicine, particularly randomized controlled trials, influence many of the daily decisions within plastic surgery as well as nearly every other medical specialty, and will continue to play a larger role in medicine in the future. Even though it is certainly not a new idea, evidence‐based medicine continues to remain a hot topic among members of the healthcare community. As evidence‐based medicine continues to grow and evolve, it is becoming more important for all physicians to understand the fundamentals of evidence‐based medicine: how evidence‐based medicine has changed, and how to successfully incorporate it into the daily practice of medicine. Results Admittedly, the wide acceptance and implementation of evidence‐based medicine has been slower in surgical fields such as plastic surgery given the difficulty in performing large scale blinded randomized controlled trials due to the inherent nature of a surgical intervention as a treatment modality. Despite these challenges, the plastic surgery literature has recently begun to respond to the demand for more evidence‐based medicine. Conclusions Today's plastic surgeons are making a concerted embrace evidence‐based medicine by increasing the amount of out of high‐level clinical evidence and should be encouraged to continue to further their endeavors in the field of evidence‐based medicine in the future.