The Emergence of Evidence-Based Medicine: A Genealogy of the Dominant Science of Clinical Care

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Healthcare Practices

Abstract

This paper examines how evidence-based medicine became “historically possible and to what it was a solution” (Mykhalovskiy & Weir 2004:1065). Following Osborne and Rose (1997), this study takes a genealogical approach. I detail the epistemological and scientific tensions that led to the first statements of EBM in 1992, as well as further explore its rise to prominence and dominance in modern western medicine. Evidence-based medicine emerged as a result of various problematizations of uncertainty in medical practice. I explain how the institution of medicine, funding agencies, and professional and economic pressures contributed to the first articulations and later acceptance of the EBM approach.

Author

• Ariane Hanemaayer, University of Alberta