Discerning Fact from Contrafaction: What One Needs to Know to Say No

How many times have we had discussions with colleagues, or practitioners from an associated allied health field, expressing their desire to change how a perfusion technique or intervention is applied? This most often occurs following some event such as attendance at a meeting, speaking with a colleague, review of an article, or through the efforts of a company representative. Occasionally these discussions may emanate spontaneously or through some sentinel event that causes pause and reflection. Regardless, we are faced with the unpleasant task of justifying how our previously acceptable actions have served us, and our patients just fine, thank you. There exists, of course, those who are early adapters to new technology preferring to drive the bandwagon more so then be the last to climb onboard. Of course most of us would prefer to adopt change somewhere in the middle adopting a ‘wait and see’ philosophy. So how do we determine the validity of fact, or perhaps better stated, how do we interpret what is true science from that based on less rigorous methods. Why do some clinicians utilize techniques in medicine that others have trialed and abandoned? Why is it that discrepancies exist in outcomes when the same procedure when applied in one institution results in such different results when applied in another?