City-wide Course in Evidence-based Medicine: Course Overview 2014
EBM is about understanding how you can use evidence to practice or change practice for the
better. Our aim is to introduce you to, and briefly survey, the fundamentals of EBM, and to
encourage and guide further development of your EBM skills. The overall theme of each topic is
how to critically appraise and understand evidence in each realm (diagnosis, therapy etc), with
the aim of incorporating the evidence in recommendations about practice.
The course (CWC) curriculum is based on a subset of a graduate course (Clinical Epidemiology,
SPPH 513) given at the School of Population and Public Health.
Our course notes and materials will overlap with SPPH 513, but the course expectations are quite
different, and material is presented in a little different order. Most students will not choose to
prepare and follow the entirety of the course curriculum online. Some students may wish to only
come to lectures after reviewing the presentation beforehand. Take a look at the online material
and decide how you want to approach the course. There is no marking or evaluation for the
course.
Classes will consist of two hour periods where I discuss the topics at hand. Generally the lectures
follow the format and questions you have been exposed to if you decided to go through the
problem-oriented material in the Course Module before class.
I will generally bring a paper copy of the Powerpoint to be presented in class with me; the
presentations will also be available online (site TBA).
Read this only if you choose to use the online materials:
All course materials are available on the WebCT Vista platform, accessible electronically at UBC.
When you enroll, we will tell you by email how to access WebCT.
When you enter the course site on VISTA, you will see a number of main folder headings, starting
with Course Overview.
CWC students only need to look in the folders that correspond to our major topics
(Diagnosis, Clinical agreement etc; see Schedule below.) Ignore the sections like Major
Project, Minor Project, and Text.
Each folder (Diagnosis, Therapy etc) contains all materials for the topic. Each has a Course
Module as well as a series of accompanying readings.
The Course Module for each topic (eg Diagnosis) is a pdf file which contains a series of exercises
that guide you through the learning component, making reference to and using the readings also
present in the folder as their basis.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Although it overlaps somewhat with SPPH 513, the City-wide Course is not in
any way academically equivalent to SPPH 513. You will not be exempted from taking SPPH 513,
or given credit for SPPH 513 based on performance in, or completion of, the City-wide Course.
Academic expectations are much higher in SPPH 513, and include major and minor projects
which are not part of the City-wide Course.
City-wide Course in Evidence-based Medicine 2014: Introduction
City-wide Course in Evidence-based Medicine, Spring 2014
Course schedule
All classes in Room 3336-1, JPN3, VGH (1:00–3:00 PM)
WEEK
DATE
TOPIC
1
Feb 13
Diagnostic tests
Feb 20
UBC Spring Break – NO CLASS
2
Feb 27
Diagnostic tests (cont.)
3
Mar 6
Clinical agreement
4
Mar 13
Bias
5
Mar 20
Chance
6
Mar 27
Therapy
7
Apr 3
Prognosis
8
Apr 10
Management recommendations, meta-analysis, etc.