[Evidence-based medicine in 2025--what will remain?]

The reader is invited to attend a symposium on the long-term impact of Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) held in 2025. When EBM emerged for the first time, there had been great expectations, not all of which were fulfilled. Against the background of many vested interests evidence from clinical studies was not always welcome. Nor had EBM been able to abolish controversy and conflict within the health care system. But EBM had been associated with a substantial change of clinical mentality with practitioners becoming more cooperative, more self-critical and open for a scientific basis of their work. Although the reasoning of doctors has remained within a narrative framework, EBM has provided them with a critical tool for diagnosis, causal relations and intervention.