Sensible Medicine Sensible Medicine Authors - Prasad/Cifu/Mandrola/Demania/Makary/Cristea/Alderighi & More

We discuss the state of medical education, Harvard music video, causal language at JAMA and more


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This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sensible-med.com/subscribe

Gosh was this a great conversation about her recent paper on specification curve analysis of nutritional observational studies.
Here is Dr. Zeraatkar’s bio:
Dena Zeraatkar, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Anesthesia and Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI) at McMaster University. She earned her doctoral degree at McMaster University in the Health Research Methodology graduate program. Following her doctoral training, she pursued postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, for which she was awarded a Banting scholarship.
Her research centers on evidence synthesis and evaluation—identifying and appraising research to optimally inform healthcare and public health decisions. She often works in areas in which the evidence is complex or conflicting, examples of which include nutrition and COVID-19 therapeutics. For her research, in 2023, she was awarded a Gairdner Early Career Investigator Award.
First, it would help to read my comments yesterday on the paper. Dr. Zeraatkar is well-spoken, clear and she explains a complicated topic in simple terms. Her work is exactly the type we love at Sensible Medicine. Stay for her final comment. It made me so happy.
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The Thomas Sowell quote, “On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today's problems are a result of yesterday's solutions” has been ringing in my head a lot lately.


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Gosh was I lucky to speak with Professor Erik Van Zwet from Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is the first author on a recent NEJM Evidence paper looking at more than 23,000 trials in the Cochrane Database. (I linked to an URL that should get by the paywall.)
There are technical aspects of this paper. We hit on some (not a lot) of them. The gist of it though is really important when we look at evidence. Erik did an excellent job of explaining P-values, trial power, and, at the end, we discuss how this work might inform the ability of trials to replicate.
This discussion also pairs well with one I had with computer scientist Ben Recht.
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
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Why have I been committed to medical education? Some of the reasons are admirable but not terribly novel. Others are a bit hard to admit, but just as true.


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