Evidence-Based Medicine

Evidence-Based Medicine


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national and international recognition of Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública as an institution promoting clinical practice based on science and values.

Mission: (1) spread the scientific paradigm to society (scientific literacy); (2) promote evidence-based clinical practice; (3) generate knowledge about evidence-based medicine by performing metascience; (4) develop lightweight technologies that promote innovation in medical thinking.



Specific Objectives of the MBE Center

Popularization of evidence-based clinical practice
Traditional approaches to MBE have a complex connotation, distancing the health professional from the scientific paradigm. We intend to democratize methodological learning, presenting it in a simple way and aligned with clinical decision-making. The essence of MBE is not the scientific production by the health professional, but the consumption of scientific evidence in clinical decision making. This must be the domain of every professional, researcher or non-researcher. There is a scarcity of interventions aimed at the democratization of EBM, and we see this gap as an opportunity to contribute to a cultural evolution within the reasoning in health. Such interventions take place through internal courses (undergraduate and graduate), extension courses aimed at the external public and publications in simple and didactic language. We aim to demystify the complexity of the subject, making people understand and like the cultural environment.

Promote scientific culture in society
The effectiveness of clinical decisions depends on synergy with patient preference. Many preferences are influenced by an unscientific culture. We believe that the scientific paradigm must be culturally present in a society, promoting a synergism between the scientific position of a professional and a decision shared with the patient. Thus, we cannot limit scientific education to professionals, as it must be universal. This implies the development of actions that open dialogue with society about what scientific thinking in health is all about.

Generate knowledge regarding the application of the MBE
In our line of research, we will have descriptive and analytical questions about the scientific universe in health, such as:

  • Describe the prevalence of phenomena that reduce the reliability of evidence (inadequate statistical power, multiple comparisons, publication bias).
  • Describe the prevalence of studies that test useless hypotheses.
  • Identify and describe cognitive biases in medical thinking.
  • Quantify the impact of systematic and random errors on the predictive value of evidence.
  • Explore the adequacy of approaches related to effectiveness studies.



History and Justification for the Creation of the Center

A Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública was a pioneer in Brazil by being one of the first medical schools to create a mandatory subject dedicated to the knowledge of EBM. Ten years ago, at the suggestion of the coordinator of the Medicine course, Marta Menezes, the discipline Evidence-Based Clinical Reasoning (RCBE) appeared, taught by prof. Luís Correia to the 10th semester students.

This initiative was developed over the years, serving as a stimulus for other actions that expanded the impact of the RCBE discipline. They were:

  • The creation of the Medicine Based on Evidence blog, in 2010, today with 1.8 million hits and 40.000 followers on its respective Facebook page (fanpage), placing the Bahiana as a reference in Brazil in this matter.
  • The emergence of international partnerships within the scope of MBE, such as the University of Ulm and the visit we received from the author of “O Doente Imaginado”, Marco Bobbio.
  • The holding of extension courses on Evidence-Based Medicine, the last being of an international character, consolidating the partnership with the University of Ulm, with the presence of prof. Franz Porzsolt in Bahiana.
  • The creation of the research group for the development of Evidence-Based Medicine, which has aroused the interest of a large number of undergraduate students, who already have two special doctoral students involved in this line of research.
  • Choosing Wisely at Bahiana, coordinated by Prof. Marta Menezes, with the scope of a reflective campaign and a promising line of research, involving several graduate students.
  • The inclusion of the MBE conference in the Semana do Calouro, an action supported by the current coordinator of the Medicine course, Prof. Ana Verônica Batista.

Thus, the impact of MBE as a line of teaching and research in the Bahiana. This perception culminated in the idea of ​​concentrating these actions in a structured nucleus, which would catalyze the impact of evidence-based medicine within the Bahiana and, consequently, the impact of Bahiana in promoting this paradigm nationally and internationally. This Nucleus was then called the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine (Center MBE). 

Finally, the existence of the MBE Center is in line with the philosophy of the Research and Innovation Center of the Bahiana (NUPI), because what we propose is innovation based on light technology, represented by a differentiated way of thinking about health.