Case studies: Anecdotes or fundamentals?

Résumé 0

Experimental medicine encompasses a wide array of research, extending from fundamental scientific principles to clinical research, which involves studies of people and case studies. The need for fundamental and mechanism-based understanding is a small part of medical research in the age of connected medicine and medical networks. Many challenges remain, however, including the transmission of clinical approach and interaction between clinicians and researchers. The scholastic proposal: divide, defini, concede, negato, probato seems to be the secret to building the fundamentals with an approach based on case studies. Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending ideas in an increasingly pluralistic context. We highlight the necessity of developing controversy in order to elaborate new models and new ideas. Finally, patients should be more involved in their own case studies.