Integrated teaching helps evidence based teaching

Editor—I agree with Manique Wijesinghe that evidence based medicine should be taught in medical schools.¹ Teaching evidence based medicine is equally important in both preclinical and clinical phases.

Research is not given much importance in undergraduate teaching. But medical students should know the basics of research, such as reviewing articles in medical journals. The greatest advantage of evidence based teaching is that medical students think in line with research.

Introducing an integrated method of teaching is one way of stimulating students towards the evidence based learning. Undergraduate students find the anatomy of an organ hard to understand unless they realise its clinical or surgical importance. Conventional teaching has little scope for such correlation, especially in preclinical subjects. But in an integrated system of teaching, in which a student learns all the preclinical subjects together, better understanding is more likely.

1. Wijesinghe M. Evidence based medicine should be taught in medical schools. studentBMJ 2005;13:87. (February.)