SANTORIO SANTORIO – THE PIONEER OF EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE
Abstract
In everyday clinical practice there is a constant need for valid information about diagnosis, prognosis, therapy and prevention of a variety of diseases. But there could be a disparity between the physician’s diagnostic skills and his clinical judgment if he relies only on traditional sources of information. In the 1992, a group of scientists from the McMaster University in Ontario, Canada attempted to integrate individual clinical expertise with the best external evidence. They propose a process in which systematically finding, appraising and using of contemporaneous research were the base for proper clinical decision. They called this integration of personal clinical knowledge with research evidence – Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and since then interest in this field has growing exponentially. But 400 years before this important concept emerged a young physician from Koper, named Santorio Santorio (1561 – 1636) argued that a doctor should first rely on sense experience, then on reasoning, and only lastly on authority. Beside his numerous medical inventions he was the first to search justification to his practice by using some vital connection between measured parameters and a person’s health state. He could be therefore credited as one of the beginners of modern concepts of science or evidence based medicine.References
Akobeng, A.K. (2005). Understanding systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Archives of Diseases in Childhood, 90 (8), 845–848.
Antman, E.M., Lau, J., Kupelnick, B., Mosteller, F., Chalmers, T.C. (1992). A comparison of results of meta-analyses of randomised control trials and recommendations of clinical experts. Journal of American Medical Association, 268(2), 240-248.
Bastian, H., Glasziou, P., Chalmers, I. (2010). Seventy-five trials and eleven systematic reviews a day: how will we ever keep up? PLoS Medicine, 7(9), e1000326.
Borisov, P. (1996). Santorio Santorio. Enciklopedija Slovenije. Vol. 10. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga.
Brotons, C., Björkelund, C., Bulc, M., Ciurana, R., Godycki-Cwirko. M, Jurgova, E. et al. (2005). Prevention and health promotion in clinical practice: the views of general practitioners in Europe. Preventive Medicine, 40(5), 595-601.
Castiglioni, A. (1987). La vita e l' opera di Santorio Santorio Capodistriano. Trst: Italo Svevo.
Choudhry, N.K., Fletcher, R. H., Soumerai, S.B. (2005). Systematic review: the relationship between clinical experience and quality of health care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 142(4), 260-73.
Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group (1999). The Cochrane Library, Issue 2, Oxford: Update Software.
Davidoff. F., Haynes. B., Sackett, D., Smith, R. (1995). Evidence-based medicine: a new journal to help doctors identify the information they need. British Medical Journal, 310(6987), 1085.
Davis, D.A., Mazmanian, P.E., Fordis, M., Van Harrison, R., Thorpe K.E., Perrier, L. (2006). Accuracy of physician self-assessment compared with observed measures of competence: a systematic review. Journal of American Medical Association, 296(9), 1094-102.
Davis, D.A., Thomson, M.A., Oxman, A.D., Haynes, R.B. (1997). Changing physician performance: a systematic review of the effect of continuing medical education strategies. Journal of American Medical Association, 274, 700-705.
Dawes, M., Summerskill, W., Glasziou, P., Cartabellotta, A., Martin, J., Hopayian, K., et al. (2005). Sicily statement on evidence based practice. BMC Medical Education, 5(1), 1.
Eknoyan, G. (1999). Santorio Sanctorius (1561-1636) - founding father of metabolic balance studies. American Journal of Nephrology,19(2), 226-233.
Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group. (1992). Evidence-based medicine. A new approach to teaching the practice of medicine. Journal of American Medical Association, 268(17), 2420-2425.
Grmek, M.D. (1946). Santorio Santorio, začetnik eksperimentalne medicine. Medicinar, 1, 39-42.
Grmek, M.D. (1975). “Santorio Santorio,” The Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. XII. New York: Scribner.
Haynes, R.B. (1993) Where's the Meat in Clinical Journals [editorial]? ACP Journal Club,119, A22-A23.
Hook, O., (1999). Scientific communications. History, electronic journals and impact factors. Scandinavian Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 31(1), 3-7.
Jernberg, T., Johanson, P., Held, C., Svennblad, B., Lindbäck, J., Wallentin. L. et al. (2011). Association between adoption of evidence-based treatment and survival for patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction. Journal of American Medical Association, 305(16), 1677-1684.
Major, R.H. (1938). Santorio Santorio. Annals of Medical History, 10, 369-381.
Oxman, A., Guyatt, G.H. (1993). The science of reviewing research. Annals of the New York Acadademy of Sciences, 703, 125-134.
Pickering, G.W., (1956). The purpose of medical education. British Medical Journal, 2, 113-6.
Pintar, I. (1960). Sanctorius Sanctorius (Santotio Santorio). Slovenski biografskii leksikon. Ljubljana: SAZU.
Sackett, D.L. (1996). Using evidence based medicine to help physicians keep up to date. Serials, 9, 178–181.
Sackett, D.L., Richardson, W.S., Rosenberg, W.M.C., Haynes, R.B. (1996). Evidence-Based Medicine: How to practice and teach EBM. London: Churchill-Livingstone.
The Cochrane Library (1999), Cochrane Collaboration, Issue 2, Oxford: Update Software.
Downloads
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Open Access Policy and Copyright
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors grant the publisher commercial rights to produce hardcopy volumes of the journal for sale to libraries and individuals.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
