Seven alternatives to evidence-based medicine
Three pages on PainSci cite Isaacs 2001: 1. Why “Science”-Based Instead of “Evidence”-Based? 2. Science versus Experience in Musculoskeletal Medicine 3. Seven amusing alternatives to evidence-based medicine
PainSci commentary on Isaacs 2001: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
Basing medicine on careful observation and independently verifiable facts was a great idea when it started with Vesalius in the 1600s, and it’s been delivering the goods so well ever since that many doctors have been a bit puzzled by the modern EBM movement: what else would you base medicine on? Faith? Wit? Vehemence? In this paper, the British Medical Journal suggests seven amusing possibilities, and it’s easy to imagine more.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Common interventional procedures for chronic non-cancer spine pain: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials. Wang 2025 BMJ.
- Gabapentinoids and Risk of Hip Fracture. Leung 2024 JAMA Netw Open.
- Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.