Looking for Rules in a World of Exceptions: reflections on evidence-based practice

After more than a decade, evidence-based medicine (EBM) is well established as an important influence in health care. EBM has engendered a wide range of responses from near-evangelical fervor to angered rejection, with supporters convinced of its scientific superiority and detractors of its needless reductionism. EBM is not a philosophical doctrine, and its originators and proponents have, for the most part, ignored critics and foresworn theorizing. However, EBM claims to be a normative guide to being a better physician. The theoretical, practical, and philosophical dimensions of EBM are intimately intertwined. This essay is a sustained reflection on the issues raised by EBM as experienced by a clinician/teacher who has tried to apply the tenets of EBM in clinical care and teaching over the past decade, and who has sought to expand the borders of EBM from a philosophical point of view.