Integration of evidence based medicine into a medical curriculum

The College of Medicine at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) was established in January 2004. The four-year curriculum was based on the Problem Based Learning (PBL) format and involved the web-based graduate medical program adopted from the University of Sydney, Australia. At KSAU-HS, one additional semester was added to the beginning of this curriculum to prepare the students in English language skills, PBL, Information Technology and Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). EBM is part of the Personal and Professional Development (PPD) theme of the medical curriculum and is integrated into each stage of the medical curriculum. These modifications of the University of Sydney curriculum are presented here as a model of EBM integration into a college of medicine curriculum.