Introduction: Nowadays, evidence-based medicine (EBM) is essential to learn and to practice medicine. The aim of the current study was to investigate the baseline level of knowledge of French students regarding EBM.
Materials and methods: Between April and May2008, a questionnaire was sent by e-mail to 900students in their last year of medical study.
Results: On 327 answers, 297 (91%), 94 (29%) and 85 (26%) students declared they read, write and speak medical English. Ninety (28%) read an article of a French medical review once a month and 43 (13%) read an article of an international medical review once a month. Three hundred and eleven (95%) knew the bases of medical research on the Internet and 219 (67%) used them. Twenty-four (7%) had already participated in a editorial staff of a medical article, 7 (2%) had been co-authors. Two hundred and seventy-two (83%) had made an oral presentation during a medical staff and 3 (1%) during a congress. Finally, 237 (73%) understood the interest of the critical analysis of an article at the ECN and 70 (21%) thought they were prepared.
Conclusion: The incapacity of learning EBM is one of the limits of the French medical training system. The introduction of the reading critical of an article at the ECN is the concrete beginning of an answer to this problem.