Towards evidence-based medicine for paediatricians

Big things and predicting the future

We all would like to know what will happen in the future. Well. In some circumstances. For some people. Sometimes. (I personally would like to know where the Leeds Rhinos will finish next season, but less happy about knowing if and when I will become a grandfather.)

But this basic idea, knowing the answer to ‘If I do Thing B will L occur?’, is something we all would like to be able to tell our patients. It seems even more prominent a need when the Thing we are about to do is a one-off, major occurrence, like an operation or a bone marrow transplant. If we are ‘just’ giving a medicine, or an ointment, we can stop of change or alter what we are doing more easily. The challenge, in terms of getting the evidence to underpin such decisions, is the difficulty in...

from Archives of Disease in Childhood current issue https://ift.tt/2OYtEXy