On Evidence, Medical and Legal
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 10, Number 3, Fall 2005
6 Pages Posted: 29 Dec 2017
Date Written: July 1, 2005
Abstract
Medicine, like law, is a pragmatic, probabilistic activity. Both require that decisions be made on the basis of available evidence, within a limited time.
In contrast to law, medicine, particularly evidence-based medicine as it is currently practiced, aspires to a scientific standard of proof, one that is more certain than the standards of proof courts apply in civil and criminal proceedings. But medicine, as Dr. William Osler put it, is an 'art of probabilities, or at best, a science of uncertainty'.
One can better practice medicine by using other evidentiary standards in addition to the scientific. To employ only the scientific standard of proof is inappropriate, if not impossible; furthermore, as this review will show, its application in medicine is fraught with bias.
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