About the book Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM:

The second edition is available for order now! Click here to find out more. The rest of this page gives details of the first edition,

Dave Sackett, Scott Richardson, William Rosenberg and Brian Haynes have written a pocket sized book on EBM. Would you like to learn more about it? Would you like to get your hands on your very own copy of this book?

Since we've spent much of 1996 writing it, we're much too involved to judge its worth. But we hope you'll find it readable, portable and a useful introduction to how to practice and teach EBM. And besides, if you get your own copy, you'll get a most excellent set of pocket cards which summarise all the essentials and can be used at the bedside.

Here's how to find out more:

• What's in the book?
• A review of the book from The Lancet
• How to order the book from the publisher
• Template for contributions to the CD accompanying the 2nd edition.

Typographic Errors and Other Goofs!

1. On page 73, paragraph 2 should be replaced with the following text:
   &QUOT Having generated a focused four-part question we proceed to demonstrate the use of natural language (textwords, tw), Medical Subject Headings (MeSH, mh) and their identification using the thesaurus, the use of MeSH subheadings (sh), and the use of limiters (such as publication type, pt, or publication year, py). Finally, we show how natural language terms (tw), MeSH terms (mh, sh) and limiters such as pt can be joined using Boolean operators (and, or, not) to form the 'methodological filters' described in Table 2.2.&QUOT
   Many thanks to Kathleen McCloskey for finding this error.
2. On page 121 specificity is incorrectly defined as d/(c+d).
   The correct definition is as on page 120: d/(b+d)
   Many thanks to S. Satya-Murti for finding this error.
3. On that same page (121) , the pretest odds (for iron deficiency anaemia) are incorrectly set at 0.47 in the text.  The correct value is 0.45, as appears in the footnote and in Table 3b1.2.
   Many thanks to Jens Tuerp for finding this error.
4. On page 159, we incorrectly refer you back to Table 3b1.1. The correct reference is to Table 3b1.2.
   Thanks again to Jens Tuerp.
5. On page 161, the book incorrectly refers to Table 3b1.4 on page 124; this should be Table 3b1.5 on page 125.
   Thanks to Takahiro Okamoto.
6. On page 186, where the book refers to Section 3b7, this should be Section 3b6
   Thanks again to Takahiro Okamoto.
7. On page 231, the formula for an odds ratio is incorrectly defined as:
   

   r1 (n2 - r2) / r2 (n1 - n1)

   
   The correct formula is:
   

   r1 (n2 - r2) / r2 (n1 - r1)

   
   Many thanks for Mitch Medow and Jim Anderson for finding this error within 24 hours of each other.
8. On page 234, the year of publication of reference 3 (Bulpitt) should be 1987, not 1986.