Evidence-Based Medicine and the Search for a Science of Clinical Care (Volume 12) (California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public)

Patient management is the central clinical task of medical care. Until the 1970s, there was no generally accepted method of ensuring a scientific, critical approach to clinical decision making. And while traditional clinical authority was under attack, there was increasing concern about the way in which doctors made decisions about patient care. In this book, Jeanne Daly traces the origins, essential features, and achievements of evidence-based medicine and clinical epidemiology over the past few decades. Drawing largely on interviews with key players, she offers unique insights into the ways that practitioners of evidence-based medicine set out to generate scientific knowledge about patient care and how, in the process, they reshaped the way medicine is practiced and administered.

"This book is an informative contribution to the education of future practioners during medical school and residency training. Daly tells the story of the evolution of EBM by recounting the intellectual contributions, spanning four decades, of individuals wishing to see the best available evidence about the management of clinical conditions incorporated into the practice of medicine."—Michael Whitcomb, Senior VP and Director of Division of Medical Education at the Association of American Medical Colleges

"This book is an engaging account of the evolution of evidence-based medicine, and an incisive analysis of this approach to improving healthcare. Daly's critique is a refreshing and scholarly contrast with the erection and demolition of straw men by many critics of EBM, as she poses important challenges to practitioners, policy makers, patients, researchers and others who wish to play their part in improving clinical care."—Sir Iain Chalmers, Editor at the James Lind Library

"Daly's deep and wide examination reveals how bioscientific evidence has risen to fresh importance in clinical medical practice and health policy development in the past 30 years. Her account reveals why evidence-based medicine has pentrated into North America and U.K. medical practice and beyond. She uses her critical acuity as a social scientist to observe with warmth the Pilgrims who have blazed the EBM trail. This is the history of EBM that we needed."—Stephen R. Leeder, author of A Race Against Time

Contents Foreword By Way of Background Note on Method 1. Introduction: Evidence, Science, and Certainty 2. Clinical Epidemiology: The Intellectual Heritage 3. The Discipline of Clinical Epidemiology 4. The Rise of Evidence-Based Medicine 5. An Appraisal, with Critique 6. The British Intellectual Heritage 7. The Cochrane Collaboration 8. The Cochrane Collaboration in South Africa 9. Achievements and Limitations 10. The Continuing Search for a Science of Clinical Care Bibliography Index Jeanne Daly traces the development of evidence-based medical practices from the 1970s until the present day