Rethinking Medical Knowledge in the Post‐Pandemic Era: A Meta‐Narrative Review of Evidence‐Based Medicine's Critiques and Future Directions

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) has been celebrated as a paradigm shift in clinical practice, yet it has also provoked sustained critique across medicine and the social sciences. This article offers a meta-narrative review of critical perspectives, synthesizing debates from medicine, philosophy, sociology, and health policy. We propose a four-dimensional framework—epistemological, methodological, political, and practical—to map these critiques and explore their interconnections. The COVID-19 pandemic acted as a stress test for EBM, amplifying pre-existing tensions and raising questions about its theoretical foundations, methodological hierarchies, institutional authority, and practical applicability. Rather than rejecting EBM outright, critics increasingly call for its renewal, advocating for epistemological pluralism, methodological innovation, and greater sensitivity to context, power, and uncertainty. This sociological analysis contributes to rethinking medical knowledge production in a post-pandemic era.