LAUSR

Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM) is held to be the gold standard approach to cases for veterinary clinicians; reducing the use of habit, anecdote and theoretical reasoning by basing clinical decisions on the best available empirical evidence.1 The veterinary profession has, quite rightly, been moving towards using a more evidence-based approach to clinical practice in recent years. The fundamentals of EBVM are now taught throughout the curricula of UK veterinary schools, postgraduate certificates focus on the tenets of EBVM, the EBVM Learning website2 is used worldwide to teach the stages of EBVM and RCVS Knowledge have launched a journal ( Veterinary Evidence ) whose remit is to publish evidence to aid clinical decision making. However, the reality for many vets in practice is that there is still a dearth of good-quality evidence available upon which to base even the simplest of day-to-day clinical decisions. There are many reasons for this lack of evidence, not least the lack of funding available to conduct high quality, randomised controlled trials addressing some of the common questions faced in practice. Opinion consensus is thought to be the least robust form …