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Background: Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is often an ideal, with beginnings in positivist science. More recent relativism, rights and ethics have challenged a binary view of EBM. Medical volunteering is a paradigm as GPs and trainees often run EBM projects in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which require significant contextual adaptation. We created a workshop to enable GPs and GP trainees to reflect on and plan for the factors important in the application of EBM in LMICs. We describe the first running at the 21st WONCA Europe Conference. Aim: To enable GPs/trainees to plan for various factors when applying EBM in LMICs in order to promote mutual gains. Method: A 75-min workshop with GPs/trainees was conducted using a variety of methods including didacticism, before and after brainstorming, vignettes, voting, role-play and feedback. Key-points highlighted were ethics, economics, politics, culture and relationships. Results: Feedback was positive with recommendations to offer the workshop to all GPs/trainees. Lessons learnt were broad-ranging and important. Conclusion/Recommendation: This is an effective workshop. More work is needed to bridge the 'EBM gap' in LMICs from both volunteers and recipients. This workshop should be extended to all high-income countries for all health professionals to undertake before medical placements abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to articles about innovative strategies for supporting primary care workforce in Rwanda in a previous issue.