Keynote Speaker for 2011 SRF Confirmed!

The GSO is pleased to announce that Harriet Hall, M.D., also known as the Skepdoc, will deliver the keynote address at the 2011 Student Research Forum (SRF) in May 12, 2011.

Evidence Based Medicine Isn’t Enough

Whenever possible, we try to offer patients treatments proven effective by scientific evidence. The current guidelines for evidence based medicine (EBM) are flawed because they give too little weight to prior plausibility and too much weight to trials that amount to junk science or “Tooth Fairy” science.

True science-based medicine (SBM) puts all the information from clinical trials and basic science into perspective. So-called “alternative medicine” is a non-scientific concept and although some of its treatments claim to be evidence-based, a rigorously science based analysis rejects most of them. Homeopathy and acupuncture “work” but not better than placebos; they provide good examples of the principles involved.

Dr. Hall has been an outspoken and highly regarded proponent of skeptical thinking in life as well as medicine.