Assignment: Pinnacle of Good Patient
Assignment: Pinnacle of Good Patient
Copyright 2014 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
The Connection Between Evidence-Based Medicine and Shared Decision Making
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) and shared decision making (SDM) are both essential to quality health care, yet the interdependence between these 2 approaches is not generally appreciated. Evidence-based medicine should begin and end with the patient: after finding and appraising the evidence and integrating its infer- ences with their expertise, clinicians attempt a deci- sion that reflects their patient’s values and circum- stances. Incorporating patient values, preferences, and circumstances is probably the most difficult and poorly mapped step—yet it receives the least attention.1 This has led to a common criticism that EBM ignores patients’ values and preferences—explicitly not its intention.2
Shared decision making is the process of clinician and patient jointly participating in a health decision af- ter discussing the options, the benefits and harms, and considering the patient’s values, preferences, and cir- cumstances. It is the intersection of patient-centered communication skills and EBM, in the pinnacle of good patient care (Figure).
One Without the Other? These approaches, for the most part, have evolved in parallel, yet neither can achieve its aim without the other. Without SDM, authentic EBM cannot occur.3 It is a mechanism by which evidence can be explicitly brought into the consultation and discussed with the patient. Even if clinicians attempt to incorporate patient prefer- ences into decisions, they sometimes erroneously guess them. However, it is through evidence-informed
deliberations that patients construct informed prefer- ences. For patients who have to implement the deci- sion and live with the consequences, it may be more per- tinent to realize that it is through this process that patients incorporate the evidence and expertise of the clinician, along with their values and preferences, into their decision-making. Without SDM, EBM can turn into evidence tyranny. Without SDM, evidence may poorly translate into practice and improved outcomes.
Likewise, without attention to the principles of EBM, SDM becomes limited because a number of its steps are inextricably linked to the evidence. For example, discus- sions with patients about the natural history of the con- dition, the possible options, the benefits and harms of each, and a quantification of these must be informed by
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
