Informed Health Choices Podcasts
Each episode includes a short story with an example of a treatment claim and a simple explanation of a Key Concept used to assess that claim
| 1 Comment | Evaluated
Informed Health Choices Primary School Resources
A textbook and a teachers’ guide for 10 to 12-year-olds. The textbook includes a comic, exercises and classroom activities.
| 0 Comments | Evaluated
Know Your Chances
This book has been shown in two randomized trials to improve peoples' understanding of risk in the context of health care choices.
| 0 Comments | Evaluated
McMaster Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Workshop Resources – Therapy module
This is the therapy module resources provided to the attendees at the McMaster Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Workshop.
| 0 Comments
McMaster Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Workshop Resources – Systematic review module
The Systematic review module resources provided to the attendees at the McMaster Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Workshop.
| 0 Comments
Harm
A University of Massachusetts Medical School text on adverse effects of treatments.
| 0 Comments
Evaluating relevance
How to evaluate relevance of research in Michigan State University’s Evidence-Based Medicine Course.
| 0 Comments
Limitations of current clinical practice
Discussion of the need to recognise the limitations of current clinical practice in Michigan State Univ’s Evidence-Based Medicine Course.
| 0 Comments
DRUG TOO
James McCormick with another parody/spoof of the Cee Lo Green song ‘Forget You’ to prompt scepticism about many drug treatments.
| 0 Comments
Tom Hanks and Type 2 Diabetes
A 50-minute illustrated talk by James McCormack prompted by Tom Hanks’ announcement that he had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
| 0 Comments
Choosing Wisely
James McCormack using song and dance to warn about the negative effects of overtreatment.
| 0 Comments
‘Tricks to help you get the result you want from your study (S4BE)
Inspired by a chapter in Ben Goldacre’s ‘Bad Science’, medical student Sam Marks shows you how to fiddle research results.
| 0 Comments
It’s just a phase
A resource explaining the differences between different trial phases.
| 0 Comments
How do you regulate Wu?
Ben Goldacre finds that students of Chinese medicine are taught (on a science degree) that the spleen is “the root of post-heaven essence”.
| 0 Comments
Science is about embracing your knockers
Ben Goldacre: “I don’t trust claims without evidence, especially not unlikely ones about a magic cream that makes your breasts expand.”
| 0 Comments
Balancing Benefits and harms
A blog explaining what is meant by ‘benefits’ and ‘harms’ in the context of healthcare interventions, and the importance of balancing them.
| 0 Comments
Why treatment comparisons must be fair
Fair treatment comparisons avoid biases and reduce the effects of the play of chance.
| 0 Comments
Reducing biases in judging unanticipated effects of treatments
As with anticipated effects of treatments, biases and the play of chance must be reduced in assessing suspected unanticipated effects.
| 0 Comments
Why treatment uncertainties should be addressed
Ignoring uncertainties about the effects of treatments has led to avoidable suffering and deaths.
| 0 Comments
Interactive PowerPoint Presentation about Clinical Trials
An interactive Powerpoint presentation for people thinking about participating in a clinical trial or interested in learning about them.
| 0 Comments
Annals Graphic Medicine: How screening is portrayed in the media
A cartoon series addressing the theme "Earlier is not necessarily better".
| 0 Comments
Smart Health Choices: making sense of health advice
The Smart Health Choices e-book explains how to make informed health decisions.
| 0 Comments
Evidence Based Medicine Matters: Examples of where EBM has benefitted patients
Booklet containing 15 examples submitted by Royal Colleges where Evidence-Based Medicine has benefited clinical practice.
| 0 Comments
Manipulating doctors: testimony from an ex-drug rep
In this 10-min video, Gwen Olsen, a former pharmaceutical sales representative, talks about manipulating doctors to sell more drugs.
| 0 Comments
On being sucked into a maelstrom
In 2006, a patient in the UK, who happened to be medically trained, found herself swept along by the Herceptin […]
| 0 Comments
A tragic epidemic of blindness in babies
‘In the period immediately after World War II, many new treatments were introduced to improve the outlook for prematurely-born babies. […]
| 0 Comments
A new treatment for strawberry birthmarks
Treatments with dramatic effects are occasionally discovered by accident. Take the example of a condition that occurs in infants called […]
| 0 Comments
Lung cancer screening: early but not early enough?
Screening may detect disease earlier, but not always early enoughto make a difference (see Figure). Some cancers, for example lung […]
| 0 Comments
Could checking the evidence first have prevented a death?
‘In a tragic situation that could have been averted, Ellen Roche, a healthy, 24-year-old volunteer in an asthma study at […]
| 0 Comments
The Yellow Card Scheme
The Yellow Card Scheme was launched in Britain in 1964 after the thalidomide tragedy highlighted the importance of following up […]
| 0 Comments
Generating and investigating hunches about unanticipated adverse effects of treatments
Generating hunches about unanticipated effects of treatments Unanticipated effects of treatments, whether bad or good, are often first suspected by […]
| 2 Comments
Treatments with dramatic effects
Sometimes patients experience responses to treatments which differ so dramatically from their own past experiences, and from the natural history […]
| 2 Comments
The need to go beyond impressions
If patients believe that something helps them, isn’t that enough? Why is it important to go to the trouble and […]
| 0 Comments
Facing up to uncertainties: a matter of life and death
‘Failure to face up to uncertainties about the effects of treatments can result in avoidable suffering and death on a […]
| 0 Comments
When practitioners disagree
In this sub-section Introduction (this page) Caffeine for breathing problems in premature babies Antibiotics in pre-term labour Breast cancer Introduction […]
| 2 Comments
Moderate treatments effects: usual and not so obvious
Most treatments do not have dramatic effects and fair tests are needed to assess them. And sometimes a treatment may […]
| 3 Comments
The classical (Halstead) radical mastectomy
The radical mastectomy, devised in the late 19th century by William Halsted, was the most commonly performed operation for breast […]
| 0 Comments
Drastic treatment is not always the best
‘It is very easy for those of us treating cancer to imagine that better results are due to a more […]
| 0 Comments
Intensive treatments for breast cancer
The therapies advocated for breast cancer – so often in the news – provide some especially valuable lessons about the […]
| 2 Comments
No wonder she was confused
In January 2004, a hysterectomy patient wrote this letter to The Lancet: ‘In 1986 I had a hysterectomy because of […]
| 0 Comments
Evening primrose oil for eczema
Even if inadequately assessed treatments do not kill or harm, they can waste money. Eczema is a distressing skin complaint […]
| 0 Comments
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)
In women going through the menopause, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is very effective in reducing the distressing hot flushes that […]
| 0 Comments
Diethylstilboestrol
At one time, doctors were uncertain whether pregnant women who had previously had miscarriages and stillbirths could be helped by […]
| 0 Comments
Mechanical heart valves
Drugs are not the only treatments that can have unexpected bad effects: non-drug treatments can pose serious risks too. Mechanical […]
| 0 Comments
Avandia
2010 saw another drug – rosiglitazone, better known by the trade name Avandia – hitting the headlines because of unwanted […]
| 0 Comments
Vioxx
Although drug-testing regulations have been tightened up considerably, even with the very best drug-testing practices there can be no absolute […]
| 0 Comments
Thalidomide
Thalidomide is an especially chilling example of a new medical treatment that did more harm than good. [1] This sleeping […]
| 0 CommentsNo Resources Found
Try clearing your filters or selecting different ones.