Best Practices and Bad Habits in Practicing Medicine and Teaching Students
Listen to Danielle Ofri lamenting a fact she discovered about her work in New York City’s Bellevue hospital as a physician: “we often ignore good advice when it conflicts with what we’ve always done.”
Ofri was referring to the latest clinical guideline issued by the Society of General Internal Medicine that recommended against annual physical exams for healthy adults. The scientific evidence shows “the harm of annual visits — overdiagnosis, overtreatment, excess costs — can outweigh the benefits.” These guidelines become “best practices” for physicians to follow with patients; they are based upon analysis of many clinical studies.
Keep in mind that the body of evidence producing clinical guidelines for how doctors should practice is based on cumulative research and meta-analyses often involving tens of thousands of patients in control and experimental studies. “Evidence-based medicine”–even with all of the criticism of reversals in the advice doctors receive-is a reality at the fingertips of every doctor tapping
