#1 – Introducing EBM podcast - Evidence Based Medicine Podcast

Evidence Based Medicine Podcast

Welcome to the Evidence Based Medicine Podcast Hello and welcome to the evidence based medicine podcast where every episode we will discuss a landmark clinical trial that has shaped medicine as we know it. My name is Daniel Aronov and I am so excited to launch this podcast. In this podcast we will discuss the most important clinical trials in medicine. The ones that have shaped our current practice of medicine, the ones that have been the basis of guidelines and the ones we should all probably know about to improve the care of our patients. I must admit I didn’t really like evidence based medicine during medical school. I found it boring and complicated and echchc. But now I love it and I want to share it with everyone. I want to show you that it’s not boring. I want to show you that it’s actually really important. Why Evidence Based Medicine Is Important Firstly its important because unfortunately its the only way to access information in the details that our patients deserve to know. I mean we can look at guidelines, but all they will do is say: “if such and such a clinical scenario, use drug A”. But they don’t give you details about the magnitude of benefit. The guidelines won't tell you how likely drug A will help your patient when fall into this clinical scenario. For example, a guideline may say to use amitryptaline first line for migraine prevention. But it won’t tell you how likely it is to reduce your patients migraines. To know that you have to look at the evidence. There you'll find a systematic review that shows that 40% of people had improvement in their migraine symptoms with daily amitryptaline versus 25% of people who took placebo. It was also tell you the harms and how often they are likely to occur. So it can give you better tools to be able to talk to your patients about therapies that you want to initiate. Another example would be a guideline recommending say, ezetemibe for prevention of cardiovascular disease in those with high cholesterol. But it will never tell you the decrease in cardiovascular disease you can expect from the drug. You’ll only get that by looking at the evidence. In this case it was the IMPROVE-IT trial and there you’ll see that over 7 years of use, in very high risk patients ezetemibe reduced cardiovascular disease by 2%. We should definitely cover this trial in another episode. And again, this can help you talk to your patients about this drug. The second reason why evidence based medicine is important is because we’re constantly being barraged by drug company reps. You know, with their free lunches and drug samples and ridiculously good looking features. Well they will come at you with a very biased perspective of what they are trying to sell you, knowing how to use evidence based medicine can put you back in control to see the information in an unbiased way so that you can be better informed about when its right for your patients. The aim of Evidence Based Medicine Podcast There is so much medical literature out there it can be impossible to keep up. That’s why this podcast was created, so that you know about the most important studies, about the most important medications and so that you don’t need to rely on drug companies to keep up to date. This podcast is the product of a really immense passion for evidence based medicine. Musicians might understand the feeling of being so in love with a song that the only way you can release or express that love is by actually playing the song. Listen to it a million times won’t quench that love for the song, only playing it will. So that’s why I’m doing this podcast. To express my love for evidence based medicine and to get more people to appreciate the beauty and the importance of it. So thanks for listening. Please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, feel free to tweet me @ DrAronov or leave a comment right here. Music by Polyrhythmics, track titled "El Fuego"