The Bedford Murder: an Evidence-Based Clinical Mystery

Marshall Godwin and Geoffrey Hodgetts

Hanley and Belfus, 2003, £14.99, 200 pages

ISBN 1 560 53565 2

Rating: ****

Leslie Sharpe is a young family doctor in the town of Bedford, who sees a lot of interesting clinical cases in her everyday practice. When Nick Sampson suddenly disappears in mysterious circumstances and the body of a dead woman-who has connections to Nick, to Sharpe, and to you-turns up, you are drawn into the web of this thrilling and interactive mystery.

First and foremost, The Bedford Murder is a book about evidence: in a murder mystery, evidence must be considered to determine a murderer. The story includes a range of common medical problems and disorders that patients present with to a family doctor, including diabetes, hypertension, pregnancy, depression, angina, ankle injury, and oral contraception. As you and Sharpe are challenged to use an evidence based approach in caring for the patients you encounter, some bits of their stories bring you closer and closer to solving the mystery.

As well as trying to work out what is going on, you are encouraged to incorporate evidence based medicine into clinical practice. After each clinical encounter there are clinical questions about treatment, harm, prognosis, and cause. You are asked to consider the questions in the context of your own practice and what you might do before reading the evidence. The authors have done a thorough literature search to identify the best evidence to answer these questions. Sources of evidence include randomised control trials, cohort studies, case-control studies, and descriptive studies. However, you also need to consider any other information or evidence that you are aware of and whether or not you agree with the decisions that Sharpe makes in the book.

The Bedford Murder is a useful educational resource and not just for its clinical content. It also helped me to understand concepts of evidence based medicine and critical appraisal wrapped up in an interesting story.