Hi I gather this would be something like the Cochrane collaboration?
http://www.cochrane.org/ Could get confusing if too many of these "best practices" sites get going with different recommendations? Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor & Chair of Psychology [email protected] Room 4L41A 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax Dept of Psychology, U of Winnipeg 515 Portage Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3B 0R4 CANADA >>> "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> 23-Feb-13 8:43 AM >>> Since, presumably, many of use are involved in teaching and use of critical thinking, the question arises how one should approach areas that are highly technical or require a fair amount of knowledge in order to even know what questions are reasonable to ask. This is clearly the case in medicine where, unless one has the relevant background in an area (and this would include clinical experience or, a somewhat poor substitute, research of effectiveness of clinical treatments), one might not have a clue as what question to ask or what advice to follow. There are no simple answers here because, as we all know, scientific knowledge is tentative, flawed, and subject to revision in the light of new data, but there are "guidelines" that one can follow in order to engage in "best practices" or, at least, be able to use to justify what one course of action was taken instead of another (remember, it's like the Pirate Code). In medicine, there is an initiative called "Choosing Wisely" which attempts to survey what specialty physicians think are best practices and then provide rules that can be used as "heuristics" for non-specialty physicians. For non-physicians, examining these guidelines may be difficult because one does not have the relevant medical knowledge or know the jargon (i.e., one needs a Medicalese to English translator). Nonetheless, one might be able to make sense of many guidelines and, if one has to undergo a procedure that is included in the lists, discuss the recommendation with one's physician. So, where can one get this stuff? Well, the American Academy of Neurology has just published its "Top Five Choosing Wisely Recommendations"; abstract available at: http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2013/02/20/WNL.0b013e31828aab14.abstract Full text available at: http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2013/02/20/WNL.0b013e31828aab14.full.pdf+html Medscape has a popular media level article that is a close approximation to English but you may have to register to access it (on www.medscape.com, look for "AAN Points to 5 Questionable Practices in Neurology" by Susan Jeffrey, Feb 22, 2013). Folks who write about myths and such might be interested. ;-) The Choosing Wisely folks have their own website and stuff and here is the link to a page to the lists of "Top Five Recommendations" for a variety of fields and links to additional resources: http://www.choosingwisely.org/doctor-patient-lists/ For those that want all of the "Top Five (or more) Recommendations" in a PDF format, see: http://www.choosingwisely.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Choosing-Wisely-Master-List.pdf One might use examples from these lists to ask "what is the empirical basis for this recommendation?" If one's experience provides a contrary position to the recommendation, how does one resolve the "contradiction" (i.e., distinguishing between a heuristic which is generally correctly but may allow exceptions)? And so on. NOTE: Although I am a Doctor, I am not a physician and don't even play one on the internet where I could probably get away with it because on the internet no one knows you're a dog. Catfish anyone? ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a891720c9&n=T&l=tips&o=23921 or send a blank email to leave-23921-13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a89172...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=23923 or send a blank email to leave-23923-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
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