CONRAD DIAS
Ranchi, Dec 16: Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) is organising a three-day (Dec 16-18) national workshop and conference on the Grade (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) method for clinical guideline development.
Dr Gordon Guyatt and Dr Bram Rochwerg from McMaster University, Canada are teaching the methods to more than 100 medical students/doctors during the conference.
Talking to the press, director of RIMS Dr Kameshwar Prasad said that the guidelines used in India during the covid pandemic were not evidence-based and now the guidelines which are used are evidence-based guidelines.
He added that to develop these guidelines there is a particular method which is evidence-based and that particular method is being taught to doctors during the three-day conference.
Medical students and doctors from all across India such as Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh etc are taking part in the workshop.
Dr Gordon Guyatt said that historically there were many untrustworthy guidelines which were misleading and did not benefit patients. However, no there are standards for trustworthy guidelines which give the best guidance while treating a disease.
He added that trustworthy guidelines are the best guidelines because they are evidence-based, appropriately summarised and understood. It is complicated to understand the study and draw a line. For a guideline panel, it is very crucial to have high-quality evidence. It is a complicated business.
In this workshop, the doctor duo from Canada will guide and teach the medical professionals to recognise which is low-quality evidence and which is high-quality evidence so that in the end they will have trustworthy guidelines which will give the best result instead of untrustworthy guidelines.
Notably, covid-19 is one of the examples of evidence-based guidelines as various evidences were used in setting up the guidelines for covid restriction.
Dr Gordon added that many countries in the world such as Canada, the US, Spain, Brazil and China have adopted the Grade method but India is yet to adopt it. He believes this workshop will really help in establishing a hold of the Grade method in the Indian medical field.
Dr Prasad said that the Governing Body of RIMS had approved for conducting these guidelines for medical problems related to the state of Jharkhand but clearly doctors from all over India are benefitting from this workshop.
“Hopefully we will now have some better guidelines which protect the health of the nation,” he said.
