ABSTRACT
This chapter observes that patients may be put at risk by wrong decisions and by things going wrong even when a correct decision has been made. The question arises, how do people know the difference between a correct decision and an incorrect one? How do people know what we should be doing in healthcare? Many doctors believe that their practice has always been based on scientific evidence. To an extent, this has been true since Hippocrates first set aside superstition as a foundation for medicine, and embraced objectivity and observation. The chapter discusses problems with interpreting the literature, and then go on to consider the tools of evidence-based medicine and the question of ensuring that patients are properly informed. Problems with the interpretation of research include the variable quality of research publications, publication bias and the use of inappropriate statistics. The chapter deals with systematic review and meta-analysis. It discusses in adequate detail all the possible nuances of informed consent.
