title: [Evidence-based medicine: an epistemological approach].
abstract: Evidence-based medicine gathers physician's experience and the best scientific evidence to make medical decisions. This proposal has been widely promulgated by medical opinion leaders. Despite a large literature supporting this practice, a formal discussion has not been established regarding its epistemological consequences in daily medical work. The main proposal of evidence-based medicine consists of choosing the best medical decision according to the best available results from scientific studies. Herein, the goal was to highlight inappropriate application of the scientific method used by physics to clinical science. The inaccuracy resides in describing health and disease in strictly numeric equivalents that can be homogenized on a continuous scale. Finally, the authors consider each diseased human being as a complex system, unique and particular, and that this being is defined by an historical background as well as current actual context. Therefore, evidence-based medicine possesses certain limitations that must be recognized in order to to provide better health care to patients.
authors.affiliation: Grupo Reproducción, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia. dhenao@medicina.udea.edu.co
authors.forename: Daniel Eduardo
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Henao
authors.forename: Fabián Alberto
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Jaimes
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003657:Decision Making; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D019359:Knowledge; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011336:Probability; D011364:Professional Practice