Trial results !=practice change (Score 1)

Fortunately, most physicians do not change there practice based on a single study. Medicine has a long history of interventions and medications that seemed promising, but when they were looked at in a prospective, randomized control trial (RCT) they did not pan out. Vitamin E for heart disease is a recent example. The article notes out that large RCT's were not as likely to be refuted. These are the studies that physicians pay the most credence to. Learning to evaluate the methodology and statistics of a clinical trial is an important skill that is developed over time. Medical school and residency places an emphasis on this skill. As such, a physician should evaluate each trial in a rigorous fashion before deciding to incorporate the findings of that trial in his practice. Patients reading the New York Times Journal of Medicine typically do not evaluate trials in this manner. For that matter, the media usually reports the conclusions of trial authors, rather than the actual results. At times, the two can be different.