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Letter to the Editor
Evidence‑Based‑Medicine Amidst the Pandemic:
A Path Towards Continuing Medical Education and
the Combat of Misinformation
Dear Editor,
The COVID‑19 pandemic has brought intense changes in
the life of medical students, such as the suspension of most
theoretical classes and a massive load of information sources,
from reliable and scientific to sensationalist and fake news.[1]
In this context, medical students from a tutorial education
program, residents, and professors from our institution had the
idea to take advantage of this moment to reinforce important
pillars of evidence‑based medicine (EBM).
Through public online conferences twice a week, scientific
articles concerning COVID‑19 were critically analyzed,
focused on bringing medical students back to the academic
environment, to prompt teaching in the field of EBM and
enlighten the truths that science has brought about this
pandemic. In April, we held six online meetings, consisting of
clinical features, diagnostic tests, therapies and public health
interventions, with an average of 51 people per meeting,
including listeners all over Brazil, and not only our state.
In every conference, one of the students of the tutorial
education program presented a recently published article on
the topic of COVID‑19 – not only concerned about discussing
its content but also critically appraising its methods, biases
and conceptualizing EBM. Afterward, debate was stimulated,
in which other participants and an invited professor and expert
in the area could add remarks, ask and answer questions.
Creating a trustworthy online environment to disseminate
scientific light and EBM concepts, besides enabling people to
interact and exchange ideas, was also a move in promoting
virtual educational settings in the student’s curriculum – seen
as a new goal in medical education.[2]
120 © 2021 Education for Health | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
Our final message is the replicability and resiliency of our
attitude. We currently have open access articles from reputable
journals, online conferences and above all, our social networks
as huge dissemination tools for continuing medical education.
These are the ingredients needed to bring medical students,
healthcare providers, and teachers to meet again. Social
isolation or the pandemic should not stop education.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
Henrique de Paula Bedaque1,
Ana Karenina Carvalho de Souza2,
Isadora Soares Lopes2, Breno C. C. Simas2,
Maria Paula Ribeiro Dantas Bezerra2,
Elaine Lira Medeiros Bezerra3,
Ferdinand Gilbert Saraiva da Silva Maia4
1
Otorhinolaryngology Unit Residency Program, Department of Surgery,
Onofre Lopes University Hospital, 2Undergraduate Medical Students,
Health Sciences Center, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte,
3
Department of Clinical Medicine, Rheumatology Unit, Federal
University of Rio Grande do Norte, 4Department of Integrated Medicine,
Cardiology Unit, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil
Address for correspondence:
Prof. Elaine Lira Medeiros Bezerra,
Department of Clinical Medicine, Rheumatology Unit,
Health Sciences Center, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte,
620 Nilo Peçanha Av., Natal, Brazil.
E‑mail: elainelmbezerra@gmail.com
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Letter to the Editor

References This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution‑NonCommercial‑ShareAlike 4.0 License,
1. Ioannidis JP. Coronavirus disease 2019: The harms of exaggerated which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non‑commercially,
as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under
information and non‑evidence‑based measures. Eur J Clin Invest
the identical terms.
2020;50:e13223.
2. Rose S. Medical student education in the time of COVID‑19. JAMA
2020;323:2131‑2. Access this article online
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Website:
www.educationforhealth.net

DOI:
10.4103/efh.EfH_163_20

How to cite this article: Paula Bedaque Hd, Carvalho de Souza AK,
Lopes IS, C. Simas BC, Dantas Bezerra MP, Medeiros Bezerra EL, et al.
Evidence‑based‑medicine amidst the pandemic: A path towards continuing
medical education and the combat of misinformation. Educ Health 2020;33:120-1.

Submitted: 09-May-2020
Accepted: 14-Feb-2021 Published: 16-Mar-2021
© 2021 Education for Health | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow

Education for Health • Volume 33 • Issue 3 (September-December 2020) 121