Evidence-based medicine has important differences

Evidence-based medicine differs from conventional medicine in important ways. Conventional medicine is based on personal experience, with doctors dealing with patients on the basis of their own practical experience, guidance from senior physicians, and scattered research reports in textbooks and medical journals. The result is that some truly effective therapies remain unadopted in the clinic for long periods of time because they are not known to the public; some therapies that are ineffective or even harmful in practice are widely used for long periods of time because it is inferred theoretically that they may be effective. The practice of evidence-based medicine emphasizes both individual clinical experience and the use of the best available research evidence, both of which are indispensable. And the basis for such research emphasizes primarily clinical research evidence. (Excerpted from a lecture given by Prof. Wang Jialiang at the Evidence-Based Medicine Training Course in April 2000)