- © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
Evidence-Based Medicine in Sherlock Holmes' Footsteps Jorgen Nordenstorm; Blackwell Publishing; 91 pp $22.95 ISBN: 978-1-4051-5713-1
Evidence-Based Medicine in Sherlock Holmes' Footsteps is useful; not particularly innovative, nothing truly groundbreaking, but useful to students and users of evidence-based medicine. The author sets out to write a short, concise book about the evidence-based medicine process and does succeed in doing just that.
The process is described as having 4 steps; each of the book's 4 chapters describes a step. The author points out that the steps can be remembered by the mnemonic FIRE. Step 1: Formulate the question; Step 2: Information search; Step 3: Review the information (critical appraisal); and Step 4: Employ the results in your practice (or not, I suppose). The 4 steps describe and explain in sufficient detail the main concepts and processes that are used by teachers and practitioners of evidence-based medicine.
It is the same kind of material that we use as hand-outs for students or at workshops. It is based on the approach and content developed and presented by the Oxford and McMaster groups who have written the current definitive texts on this subject.1,2 That fact is a 2-edged sword: it means this book is based on a solid foundation of how evidence-based medicine has been developed and is understood; it also means there are not really any new concepts or ways of understanding and using evidence-based medicine presented in the book. However, I think the latter was not the author's intent, rather, I think his intent was to put the basics of the evidence-based medicine process together into a concise and small handbook that learners and practitioners alike could easily carry around and access when needed. In this regard, the book is quite a success.
The other feature of the book is the Sherlock Holmes quotes, anecdotes and metaphors. The purpose, I think, is to link the identification and use of evidence with the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes, in an attempt to make the case that they are somehow similar, and can help us better understand the evidence-based medicine process. I don't think it works very well in that regard. There are very few direct links between the evidence-based medicine content and the juxtaposed Sherlock Holmes content that enlightens the understanding of either. Having said that, it does make the book more interesting and gives the reader frequent little breaks. I didn't mind it. In fact I liked it; I just didn't find it helped much with understanding the evidence-based medicine content. Maybe others will.
This book will help both the teacher and the student of evidence-based medicine. As a teacher I could use this book as a recommended text instead of providing hand-outs. Students would find it much easier to carry around and not as dry as the content of most hand-outs. However it is not a substitute for Sackett et al.'s “bible.”1 For the true disciples of evidence-based medicine, that book still needs to be read and digested. However as a quick reference and for those who want “just the facts,” Nordenstrom's book meets a need.