Medicine: Mind the Gap is a lecture series that explores issues at the intersection of research, evidence, and clinical practice—areas in which conventional wisdom may be contradicted by recent evidence. From the role of advocacy organizations in medical research and policy, to off-label drug use, to the effectiveness of continuing medical education, the seminar series will aim to engage the NIH community in thought-provoking discussions to challenge what we think we know and to think critically about our role in today’s research environment.

Dr. Scott Richardson will discuss the various facets of evidence-based medicine – what it is, why we need it, and how to practice it. He will engage in a discussion on how clinicians can learn to practice evidence-based medicine even if they have already completed their formal training. He also will examine what it would take to incorporate evidence-based medicine into the newer curricula of medical schools, illustrating how his teaching institution is doing this.

Dr. Richardson is an academic general internist at the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership Campus, in Athens, Georgia, where he is Professor of Medicine and Campus Associate Dean for Curriculum. His principal scholarly interests are in clinical epidemiology, evidence-based health care and medical education. He is a co-author of the book Straus et al., Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach It, Fourth Edition (2011). Dr. Richardson is a member of the international Evidence-based Medicine Working Group, which authored the Users' Guides to the Medical Literature series in the Journal of the American Medical Association, now published in book form. Dr. Richardson continues to work on the challenges of integrating evidence into clinical decisions, particularly in evidence-based clinical diagnosis. He is also working to incorporate evidence into the new curriculum at his institution and in medical education at all levels.

This seminar is sponsored by the Office of Disease Prevention, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Prevention.

For more information, visit
http://prevention.nih.gov/mindthegap/richardson.aspx