Evidence-Based Medicine and Patient-Centred Care

Abstract

Proponents of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) argue that EBM’s approach to medicine promotes good clinical decisions while it escapes adverse issues such as implicit bias. However, EBM approaches the causation of diseases from a homogenous standpoint; that is, EBM overgeneralises evidence and the intervention measures it provides. As a result, proponents of Patient-Centred Care (PCC) allude that the strictness of EBM towards evidence impairs it from considering case-by-case treatment of patients but a generalised method of intervention. Given this problem, I argue that EBM cannot be considered a medical approach to practising medicine and conducting medical research that is in the best interest of individual patients, especially patients that prefer alternative interventions other than the methods of EBM. I conclude by drawing from the best features of EBM and PCC to create an alternative that accommodates the interests of both EBM and PCC patients.