Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma

[bcsmith]

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Smith GC, Pell JP. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ 2003;327: 1459-61.


Many of you have probably already heard about this aritcle, it was one of the Emergency Medicine Abtracts reviewed at the ACEP conference in SF. This is a very tongue and cheek research article written for the BMJ that states that

As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.

Worth looking at for a good laugh. Read the abstract here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14684649

 

[jonahhelix]

Fabulous.

All the focus on EBM drives me ccccccccccrrrrrrrraazzzy, sometimes. Sure, EBM is important, but people so often think that if the studies haven't been performed then the intervention isn't useful. Worse still, some crappy study shows "no effect" (just about the easiest result to get in research) and people now think the intervention doesn't work.

It's nice to see like minds out there!

 

[Apollyon]

You can click the link to the BMJ on the PubMed page for the full-text citation, then there are many "rapid responses" which are of some value. Worth 15 minutes of your time.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I love it!

 

[Sessamoid]

I met a professional skydiver who survived the failure of both her main and reserve 'chutes. Spent about a year and half in the hospital, but she walked out of it with only a slight limp.

 

[anonymousEM]

when I turned in that article for my journal club submission, the next month I was rewarded with the opportunity to present a British "best medicine" website that went through many different EBM evaluations...but the discussion surrounding the parachute article was pretty entertaining

 

[docB]

This deserves a bump. I was looking for it for a lecture. Seems like I usually wind up doing half or more of my lecture prep on SDN.

 

[docB]

Here's a relavent case report for any future studies on this.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,547161,00.html?test=latestnews

 

[roja]

I use this article alot when I talk about EBM.