Chris Del Mar

The Evidence-based Practice Workbook is an ideal tool for use by GPs, medical specialists and other healthcare professionals to learn the concepts of evidence-based practice (EBP). Practical and interactive, this workbook provides simple methods to help health professionals find and use the best evidence to answer clinical questions, developing their skills in: asking clinical questionssearching for answersdiscriminating good from poor information and researchusing the answers to make clinical decisions. This attractive, colour workbook provides a clear explanation of EBP skills and concepts. Written by internationally respected authors, this expanded and updated edition has been developed from evidence-based practice workshops run by the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Queensland and Oxford, and contains information and exercises to help health professionals learn how to use EBP in their clinical practice.

This book contains forewords by Chris Del Mar and James Hutchinson respectively - Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Australia; Chief of Infectious Diseases Control, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Acute respiratory infections make up a quarter of all primary care consultations. This book is the ideal quick reference and teaching aid. In presenting best evidence on the epidemiology, causes and management of the most common acute respiratory infections, this book gathers together a wealth of previously scattered original research and information and offers solutions for practical application. It is concise, clear and easy to use. Primary care professionals, including doctors, nurses and health visitors will find it invaluable, as will general practitioners in training. 'There is much more to these diseases than most of us realise. It will not take you long to find fascinating and useful material here. It makes for a very interesting read. The evidence about management, as well as diagnosis, is very important. Acute respiratory infection is one of the famously important areas in which mistaken beliefs by not only our patients, but also us doctors, of the benefits of antibiotics makes to the contribution of bacterial resistance. Graham Worrall has highlighted new forms of treatment we often forget when we reach for the pad to write another 'safety' prescription for antibiotic. There is a wealth of information here.' - Chris Del Mar, in his Foreword. 'An objective, thoughtful treatment of a subject that accounts for a large part of a primary care physician's working life but inexplicably little of his or her training. Thorough evaluation of the literature, often exposing huge gaps in the study of these extremely common conditions, will serve as an impetus for study and a guide to rational decision-making. The straightforward approach with excellent practical distillations of the evidence and resulting recommendations is perfect for the busy physician or busy student. As someone who teaches medical students about infections I have longed for a concise resource to support my efforts at encouraging prudent antibiotic prescription for respiratory tract infections. I long no more.' - James Hutchinson, in his Foreword.

Clinicians are taught masses of facts, but not how to use them in the messy reality of patient care. This book provides a missing link between evidence and the clinical coalface. Though there are plenty of guides to evidence-based medicine, few explain how to build the information into patient oriented decision-making. Clinical Thinking allows you to think both logically and laterally about daily clinical issues and look at problems from different angles. Uses realistic scenarios, frameworks and modelsTakes you through the whole decision-making process, from observation and narrative to evaluating the best evidence for the individual situationIllustrations and flow charts help clarify this new approachThese methods have been tried and tested by the authors, internationally respected general practitioners and teachers in primary care – all leaders in the evidence-based medicine movement This book takes clinical medicine a big step forward in the direction of patient-focused practice!