The gold standard in patient care is the practice of evidence based medicine (EBM). This is the intersection of 3 things: the best available evidence, the doctors clinical experience and the patients values and preferences (not necessarily in this order). EBM is not cookbook medicine, it is an individualized therapy that comes out of the relationship between doctor and patient where both people bring to the table their knowledge, experience and preference.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as the universal best way to treat a person, each intervention is unique because each patient has their own set of preferences and each doctor has their own range of clinical familiarity and knowledge of the best available evidence. The most difficult aspect of EBM is understanding the best available current evidence because it is always changing and the amount of research is so vast.
There are several online tools that can be very helpful, for patient and doctor, to stay on top of medical evidence. The Cochrane Collaboration is an excellent resource which summarizes research into plain language summaries on a wide variety health topics (www.canada.cochrane.org) that affect you and your family. Cochrane, and other sites like it (info poems, Bandolier), are invaluable tools to doctors and patients alike.
For example, let’s talk about salt…which is bad for you right? The best available evidence clearly tells us that lowering salt lowers blood pressure. However, there is no evidence that lowering your salt intake reduces your risk of dying, getting heart disease or improves cardiovascular outcomes. In fact, the best available evidence tells us that lowering your salt intake increases your risk of dying and of getting heart failure (yes, you read that right).
The benefit of restricting salt intake is limited to lowering blood pressure only and does not improve the outcomes we are looking for by lower blood pressure (fewer cardiovascular events and longer life).