Upcoming Topics
Essential Evidence Plus (EE+) was designed around a validated scheme for classifying the questions of physicians. The Editor in Chief, Dr Mark Ebell and colleagues originally identified 57 generic types of questions, such as "What is the best drug x for disease y?"1 Dr Ebell collapsed some of those categories into the current scheme for EE+, to assure that all of the key questions of a practicing physician are addressed by each EE+ topic.2 The original topic list of 800 topics was based on a review of the most common conditions seen by primary care doctors based on the US National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, and a careful review of the tables of contents of standard medical references.
1. Ely JW, Osheroff JA, Ebell MH, Bergus GR, Levy BT, Chambliss ML, Evans ER. Analysis of questions asked by family doctors regarding patient care. BMJ. 1999 Aug 7;319(7206):358-61.
2. Ely JW, Osheroff JA, Gorman PN, Ebell MH, Chambliss ML, Pifer EA, Stavri PZ. A taxonomy of generic clinical questions: classification study. BMJ. 2000 Aug 12;321(7258):429-32.
If there is a topic area that is not already listed in EE+ that you feel would benefit the research community then please contact Georgina Smith ([email protected]) with your suggestion for a new topic. Please provide us with your CV, a brief justification of relevance to the research community along with any names of potential co-authors for this new topic. The proposal will be considered by our Editor-in-Chief, Professor Mark Ebell, and if approved we will support you through the rest of the process. We look forward to hearing your ideas!
The following topics represent those that we intend to develop in the future:
High priority topics
- Acid-based abnormalities
- Bronchopulmonary dysplasia
- Gastric outlet obstruction
- Hepatomegaly
- Histiocytosis
- Leukemia (chronic lymphocytic)
Lower priority topics
- African tick-bite fever
- Amyloidosis
- Angioedema
- Apnea (neonatal)
- Ataxia (diagnosis)
- Atrial and ventricular septal defects
- Bronchiolitis obliterans
- Congenital heart disease
- Cysticercosis
- Dacryocystitis
- Dysphagia
- Dystonic reaction
- Echinococcosis
- Endophthalmitis
- Erythroblastosis fetalis
- Floppy infant syndrome
- Fracture (hip and pelvis)
- Fracture (nasal and facial)
- Hernia (diaphragmatic)
- Hernia (femoral)
- Horner's syndrome
- Injection (deltoid bursa)
- Intussusception
- Learning disabilities (child)
- Methemoglobinemia
- Nephrotic syndrome
- Rhesus isoimmunization
- Rickettsial pox
- Spinal tumors
- Subphrenic abscess
- Teratoma
- Tracheitis
- Trichinosis
- Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome
