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Critical Thinking in Medicine

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Patients are Vulnerable to False Claims

Healthcare is filled with thousands of claims; most are untrue. Your inability to assess these claims renders you vulnerable. This blog aims to equip you with the basic skills necessary to evaluate healthcare claims for yourself.

The Hierarchy of Medical Evidence

Evaluating a claim in healthcare can be simplified once you understand three simple rules:​

    1.  A claim is only as strong as the evidence behind it.​

    2.  Medical evidence falls into only a few distinct categories.​

    3.  Each category is predictably reliable, and can be ranked into a hierarchy.

    4.  To evaluate a claim, simply identify its evidence and where it falls in the hierarchy.

Hierarchy o evidence

Use The Hierarchy to Evaluate a Claim

Suppose you believe a treatment works because a friend had a good result, this is anecdotal evidence. It sits near the bottom of the evidence hierarchy. We are easily fooled by anecdotes due to a host of reasons, such as: placebo effects, the natural history of the disease, or concurrent treatments. Unless you have stronger evidence - or a reason why this anecdote is more reliable than the millions that have fooled us before - this treatment is unlikely to work.

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Also, don't hesitate to explore Dr Woolf's lectures on YouTube.

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