The focus of the Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) Program is on providing residents with the understanding and skills to:
- formulate a clinical question,
- determine the best resources to answer the question,
- access those resources,
- appraise rapidly the available evidence, and
- put the evidence into practice.
Primary Goals:
- To help residents become competent self-directed life-long learners with the skills to effectively and efficiently keep up-to-date;
- To learn how to use Evidence Based Medicine to rapidly solve problems encountered in daily practice.
Learning Objectives:
Knowledge Component:
- To understand the rationale and benefits of EBM;
- Provide a strong foundation in the basic principles of EBM including:
- Recognizing and formulating clinical questions
- Finding and accessing information
- Interpreting information
- Applying information
- Provide and identify online resources, educational tools and web-links.
Skills Component:
- Learn to identify problems/questions encountered in practice and seek solutions based upon the best evidence. (Via EBM “assignment” to promote rapidly answering clinical questions);
- Build skills and comfort in knowledge transfer (primarily through oral presentation skills).
Attitude Component:
- To facilitate appreciation and enthusiasm for:
- the judicious use of current evidence to optimize patient care;
- maintenance of skills and knowledge through life long self-directed learning.
EBM Program Components:
- Family Medicine Evidence Based Medicine Workshop (mid August) (2 day mixed lecture & small group work with 2 hour computer lab)
- Electronic Information Resource for Primary Care Practitioners (Internet resource of links, EBM information, updates, etc)
- Brief Evidence-based Assessment of Research (BEARs) (1 page template assignment done about every 4 weeks and presented during the Family Medicine block rotation and Behavioural Medicine course.)
- Resident Journal Club (in association with the Wednesday AHD)
