Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM

Citation

Straus, S. E., Doust, J., Watt, J. A., Rochwerg, B., & Richardson, W. S. (2026). Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM (6th ed.). Elsevier.

Chapter Summary

The sixth edition is organised as ten short units, which the publisher's contents list gives as a sequence of headings without chapter numbers. The publisher describes a "short, practical format" that emphasises direct clinical application and a workbook-like layout, supported by tools online. The order of the units follows the steps of evidence-based practice: ask, find, appraise, apply, evaluate, and finally teach.

Introduction

The opening unit of a book that the publisher describes as a guide to practising and teaching evidence-based medicine (EBM) in real time, in primary and specialty care and in inpatient and outpatient settings.

Asking answerable clinical questions

The first step: turning a clinical problem into a question that can be answered from research evidence. The publisher lists how to ask answerable clinical questions as the first of the book's key areas.

Acquiring the evidence: How to find current best evidence and have current best evidence find us

The search step. The title promises two routes: finding the best current evidence when a question arises, and arranging for relevant new evidence to reach the clinician. The publisher mentions new resources for finding, organising and using evidence in clinical practice.

Appraising the evidence

The general unit on critical appraisal, which the publisher describes as judging evidence for its validity and importance. It comes before the four question-specific units that follow.

Therapy

The unit on evidence about treatment.

Diagnosis and screening

The unit on evidence about diagnostic tests and screening.

Prognosis

The unit on evidence about the likely course of a condition.

Harm

The unit on evidence about harmful effects.

Evaluation

A unit that follows the four question-specific units and precedes the one on teaching. The publicly listed contents give only its title; the publisher lists self-evaluations among the book's online tools.

Teaching EBM

The final unit addresses teaching EBM. The publisher says the sixth edition updates teaching approaches for the hybrid teaching environment, including the incorporation of AI tools.

Key Concepts

Introduction to Appraising the evidence: the steps of EBM

• Answerable clinical question: a clinical problem restated so that research evidence can address it.
• Searching for evidence: finding the best current evidence for a question and keeping up with new evidence.
• Critical appraisal: judging a study's validity and importance before using it.
• Integrating evidence with patients' values and preferences: applying findings to the individual patient, a step the publisher names explicitly.

Question types: Therapy, Diagnosis and screening, Prognosis, Harm

• Therapy: evidence about whether a treatment works.
• Diagnosis and screening: evidence about tests used to identify disease.
• Prognosis: evidence about how a condition is likely to progress.
• Harm: evidence about adverse effects.

Teaching EBM

• Educational prescriptions: one of the online tools the publisher lists for learners and teachers.
• Clinical questions log: a tool for recording the questions that arise in practice.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A workflow organised by clinical question. The contents follow the steps clinicians actually take, and the four question types (therapy, diagnosis and screening, prognosis, harm) each have a unit of their own, so a reader can go straight to the type of paper at hand.
• Practical toolkit. The publisher lists critical appraisal worksheets, pocket cards, EBM calculators, educational prescriptions, a clinical questions log and self-evaluations, giving the book an unusually hands-on character for a textbook.
• Aimed at both learners and teachers. The final unit and the title ("How to Practice and Teach EBM") address educators as well as clinicians, and the publisher states the book is for time-constrained undergraduate and postgraduate learners, instructors and practitioners in all clinical areas.
• Current edition. Elsevier reports that every chapter now includes a focus on health equity, and that the edition adds practical guidance on emerging technologies including AI, on systematic reviews and network meta-analysis, and on research methods.
• Compact. The ten-unit structure and the "short, practical format" are suited to a student fitting EBM around clinical work.

Limitations

• Short by design. The publisher stresses a short, practical format, and the contents list has ten units. Readers who want a full account of study design and statistical methods will need a methods text alongside it.
• No separate unit on systematic reviews. Systematic reviews and network meta-analysis appear in the publisher's list of topics given practical hints, but the contents list has no unit devoted to them; the question-specific units are organised by type of clinical question.
• Part of the toolkit is online. The worksheets, pocket cards, calculators and other tools are described as online supplements, so a reader without access to them has the text alone.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the research-articles course, this is the structured, textbook-length treatment of how to use evidence in practice. How to Read a Paper is a short, readable first guide to finding, reading and critically appraising clinical papers and is a sensible starting point for readers new to research; Testing Treatments is a plainly written, example-led book on why fair tests of treatments are needed, and works as background for the same ideas. Straus and colleagues' book then adds the full cycle from question to evaluation and the dedicated teaching unit.

The remaining items in the course are individual published studies, which are practice material: once the appraisal steps are familiar, they give practice in appraising real papers.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for hospital doctors, general practitioners and students of epidemiology, medical statistics and public health, and for medical learners who need to practise EBM and teach it to others. A little clinical exposure helps, as does a basic understanding of study designs and simple statistics.

A practical plan:

• Core sequence: read Introduction, Asking answerable clinical questions, Acquiring the evidence and Appraising the evidence in order.
• Question-specific units: go to Therapy, Diagnosis and screening, Prognosis or Harm when you meet a paper of that kind; do not read all four in advance.
• Use the online tools: the worksheets, pocket cards and EBM calculators are designed to be used while appraising real papers, and a clinical questions log helps build the habit of asking and answering questions.
• For educators and trainees who teach: read Evaluation and Teaching EBM, and use educational prescriptions with learners.