Exercise 3: Clinical Guidelines

This exercise will work use the NIH Clearinghouse guidelines  to introduce you to the practical use of systematic reviews as a source of "evidence".

Instructions:

1. Read this scenario.  Imagine this is your situation after having attended this session and returned to your own practice Monday morning.
2. Write a well formulated clinical question using the PICO approach (Patient or problem, Intervention or exposure, Comparison, Outcome)
3. Open a new copy of your browser (ctrl-N), and go to the National Guideline Clearinghouse^™ (NGC) at the URL http://www.guideline.gov/index.asp

4. Enter the following terms in the search box and click on the search button:

   "colorectal polyps" AND screening
   

5. You will find the following guideline:

   ACS guidelines for screening and surveillance for early detection of colorectal polyps and cancer: update 1997.
   

6. List the short-comings of this "evidence" as it currently exists.  Why is it that two sets of guidelines may make two differing recommendations for clinical practice?

Reference Links:

            none specified

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