Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has failed. Once considered revolutionary, it has facilitated cookbook medicine that undercuts physicians’ critical appraisal in individual decisions while increasing their responsibility for the improvement of health care. The Impossible Clinic traces the emergence of, and problems inherent in, EBM – an approach that requires doctors to integrate research evidence into their clinical decision making. EBM attempts to translate the results of medical research into recommendations for practice, to bring science straight to the bedside with the goals of medical standardization. Ironically, however, when disciplinary regulation converges with EBM to produce systematic clinical practice guidelines, the outcome is antithetical to the aim. Ariane Hanemaayer uses a critical sociology approach to uncover the power relations underlying the contemporary organization of the medical profession, arguing that EBM persists because it has congealed within the dominant liberal political strategy of governance, which seeks to improve health care “at a distance,” at the least cost, and without investment in infrastructure. As such, The Impossible Clinic is the first book to interrogate the history, practice, and pitfalls of EBM and how it persists due to intersecting relationships between professional medical regulation and liberal governance strategies. This persuasive indictment is essential reading.