---
name: evidence-summary
description: "Summarize a clinical research paper into a one-page structured brief: question, design, population, key results with absolute numbers, limitations and bottom line. Use when a clinician shares a paper, abstract or link and asks for a summary."
---

# Evidence Summary

Turn one clinical study into a brief a busy clinician can read in two minutes.

## Steps

1. Read the full paper if available. If only the abstract is available, say so at the top, because abstracts often omit limitations.
2. Identify the clinical question in PICO form: population, intervention or exposure, comparator, outcome.
3. Name the study design exactly (randomized trial, cohort, case-control, cross-sectional, systematic review, meta-analysis, case series).
4. Extract the primary outcome result with its effect size and 95% confidence interval. Give absolute numbers (events per 1,000 or absolute risk difference) next to any relative measure. Calculate the number needed to treat or harm when the data allow, and show the arithmetic.
5. List the three most important limitations, in order of how much they could change the conclusion.
6. State who the results do and do not apply to.

## Output format

**Citation** (authors, title, journal, year, DOI if given)
**Question** (one sentence, PICO)
**Design and setting**
**Population** (size, key inclusion and exclusion criteria)
**Main result** (effect size, CI, absolute numbers)
**Secondary results worth knowing** (two or three at most)
**Limitations** (three, ranked)
**Applies to / does not apply to**
**Bottom line** (two sentences, no stronger than the evidence)

Keep the whole brief under 400 words unless the user asks for more.

## Safety rules (apply every time)

- This skill supports clinician judgment. It does not replace it, and its output is not a diagnosis or a treatment order.
- Never work with identifiable patient information. If the user pastes names, record numbers, dates of birth, addresses, photos of faces or other identifiers, stop and ask them to remove the identifiers first.
- Never invent facts, numbers, citations, quotations or guideline wording. If a source is not available, say so plainly. Label anything you could not verify as "unverified".
- Prefer primary sources and current professional guidelines. Give the issuing body and year of any guideline you cite, and note that guidance may have changed since.
- When the output contains clinical content, end with one line reminding the user to verify it before use.

## Language standards

- Use precise, respectful clinical language. Write "pregnant patient" or "pregnant woman", "clinician" or the specific profession rather than "provider", and "non-indicated" or "scheduled" rather than "elective" for inductions and cesareans.
- Prefer "compassion" to "empathy" when describing the clinician's stance.
- Do not call a pregnant patient a "mother" before the birth.
- Write plainly. No hype words such as "groundbreaking", "game-changer" or "revolutionary".

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Part of the Clinician Essentials skill set, version 1.0.0 (2026-10-25), by Amos Grünebaum, MD. Free to use and share with attribution.