Writing PICO questions and researching different topics each week has fully added a lot to my use of evidence based medicine in clinical practice. Researching PICO topics pushed me to move beyond solely relying on what I am taught during rotations and instead actively question why we choose certain diagnostic imaging, treatment, and overall management.

One of the biggest things I learned from writing PICOs each week was learning how to formulate a focused clinical question. Breaking a case down into the problem, intervention, comparison, and outcome helped organize my thinking in a more intentional way. This made it easier to research appropriate literature, since I had a clearer idea of what I was looking for. I also found that these assignments helped me compare evidence based medicine with real world clinical practice. In several cases, I was able to connect what I researched to patients I had seen during my rotations. This made the learning more relevant and reinforced the importance of evidence based medicine in daily clinical care. 

Overall, the PICO assignments have strengthened my ability to think critically, interpret medical literature, and apply evidence to patient care. Moving forward, I see this as a skill I will continue to use as a future PA, especially with medicine constantly evolving with new guidelines and practices.