Evidence in Action

As part of our R25 initiative, one of the desires we had was to demonstrate how to use evidence, in the form of information available to readers in scientific articles, as a means to resolve clinical scenarios. Dr. Christine Goertz and I had, initially sort of unknown to each other, been in conversation with leadership in the American Chiropractic Association to provide articles for the Journal of the American Chiropractic Association. We hoped to raise the profile of Palmer College faculty members while at the same time providing ACA members with information they could apply in practice. From this the idea of the Evidence-in-Action column was born.

In brief, we invited faculty from all three campuses to write short articles in which the author initially sets out a clinical scenario- often drawn from a real case, sometimes from a “created’ scenario- and then show how a piece of literature was then used to provide guidance in managing the patient. By doing so, we could begin to introduce the reader to core concepts in evidence-based practice: sensitivity and specificity, likelihood ratios, odds and risk ratios, and so on. Each article concentrated on a single core concept, so that this was done slowly and sensitively. And in each article, we highlighted the skills and knowledge of individual Palmer faculty.

According to the editor of JACA, this column has been one of the most well-received changes of the past few years. It has generated positive press and numerous compliments. We have committed to continuing this for the future, and at present have at least 3 new columns in preparation. To date, we have provided 18 such columns to the journal. This newsletter will link to past articles, and as new ones come on line, we will add them as well.

We hope that you find these articles interesting and informative and that you also take pride in the work of your fellow faculty members. And we invite you to consider preparing one as well. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Dana Lawrence at dana.lawrence@palmer.edu and he will help you get started.

Enjoy!