Common sense, nonsense and statistics

Using the Evidence Based Medicine Framework to Support Music Therapy Posts in Healthcare Settings

The Evidence Based Medicine (EBM)1 framework has been incorporated into the field of healthcare practice over the past decade. Whatever our stance as to its benefits and disadvantages, more and more music therapists in health departments and related clinical posts will be asked to account for their work using this approach to the documentation of clinical effectiveness. It is important that music therapists working within clinical service guidelines understand the framework of EBM and are aware of ways in which they can include its precepts in their justifications for practice and posts. The levels of evidence in an EBM approach are presented and discussed and the issues particular to the application of music therapy research findings are explored. Given the author's experience in paediatric medical settings, some of the examples in this paper will refer to the children's hospital context in particular.

[Scientific bases of education in transfusion medicine]

Transfusion medicine is a medical speciality which deals with all aspects of blood transfusion. The recent evolution of this speciality was marked by an increased collaboration with clinical medicine, the development of alternatives to allotransfusion (autotransfusion, growth factors, molecular genetics), and the technical progress in laboratory techniques. The development of basic science boosted the introduction of new techniques in the detection of virus and blood cell typing. The analysis of clinical trials allowed a better definition of guidelines for the use of blood products. The blood transfusion teaching program is limited during medical training. Specialists in transfusion medicine have to complete a post-graduate course to become certified. Continuous medical training is organised to allow the specialists to keep their accreditation. Transfusion medicine is becoming more and more complex. This complexity should not lead to breaking down transfusion medicine into several activities, but on the contrary to uniting this medical speciality, within which the different actors shall remain open-minded and able to use the same 'language'.