Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Short Reports

Seven alternatives to evidence based medicine

BMJ 1999; 319 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1618 (Published 18 December 1999) Cite this as: BMJ 1999;319:1618

Rapid Response:

e-literature

Those active in internet discussion groups will recognize the evolution of a new form of scholarly writing, which I propose should be called the "Case report and review of the e-mail". These are presently neither recognized by the Science Citation Index, nor listed by Medlines or the like. Nonetheless, they can be of value, and certainly can be more worthy of quotation than say, "how I do it" articles, invited reviews, published symposia, or even occasionally front page page articles in the NEJM which were supported by large grants from drug companies and which have predictable conclusions. I have actually seen one physician try to cite comments originally posted on a proprietary web site in a journal submission, but that was an Emergengy Medicine physician, so I'm not sure what it meant. In any case, we should be aware that as we enter the information age, many worthy sholarly efforts will continue to go unrecognized while others will continue not to worth the paper they're written on.

Competing interests: No competing interests

20 December 1999
Carl J Hauser
Associate Professor of Surgery
UMDNJ / New Jersey Medical School