When ‘Best’ Practice Isn’t…

Best, is to be ‘of the highest quality, or being the most suitable, pleasing, or effective type of thing or person’. Within medical education, 'best-ness' is evident within best practice guides and recommendations, and within research, where best evidence influences design and conduct. Yet, much of the evidence of best-ness fails to consider best for who and where, what, and when. Thinking needs reframing, given that “best-ness” and medical education are such good bedfellows, but it is critical that we recognise the impact and influence of context — that practice can be good, but cannot be universally and unflinchingly best.