A critique: The good and bad of a review

Abstract

Evidence based medicine involves using both the individual clinician's expertise and the current best available external clinical evidence from systematic research in deciding on the appropriate care for individual patients. The current approach to evidence based practice in healthcare adds a third component which is patient values. Evidence based practice is thus a triad, in which the practitioner's expertise, research evidence and the patient's values are all given consideration. The balance to be struck between them depends on the individual case. The literature indicates that complementary medicine practitioners are moving away from traditional knowledge and towards the use of evidence based practice in their clinical discussions. In the context of the daily practice of complementary medicine practitioners and their continuing development of their knowledge base of evidence based practice, this short review discusses the good and bad of a review journal article.