Experiences of a journal club organized by students: A proposal for an evidence-based medicine format

Year 2016, Volume: 29 Issue: 1, 60 - 62, 09.03.2016

Gökhan Tazegül Ozlem Alhan Çağrı Kılıç Mehmet Gülpınar

Abstract

To the editor,

Journal clubs are defined as group discussions and criticalevaluations of articles. They can build the link between clinical practice and research data [1]. The three main objectives of a journal club are keeping up with the advances in the literature, learning and applying evidence-based medicine and discussing the clinical relevance of research data [2,3].

There are significant data on postgraduate journal clubs, however, there is sparce information on undergraduate journal clubs. Two papers have focused on undergraduate journal clubs: one used the critique of articles as a method to teach anatomy [4] and the other used dialectical notes to increase student discussion and understanding of the literature of molecular biology [5].

McDonough described undergradute journal clubs as “an excellent way to introduce students to primary literature, to develop their abilities in critical thinking and to practice interpreting experimental data” [5]. Since most of the published data were about postgraduate journal clubs, deriving a format for an undergraduate journal club poses a difficulty.

A Student Scientific Research Club (SSRC) was founded in 2011, and has been an active journal club for 4 years at Marmara Medical School. After having four years of experience, in 2015, SSRC decided to have a meeting to discuss its own strong and weak points. A total of 24 people participated in the meeting.

Keywords

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Experiences of a journal club organized by students: A proposal for an evidence-based medicine format

Abstract

.Journal clubs are defined as group discussions and critical

evaluations of articles. They can build the link between
clinical practice and research data [1]. The three main
objectives of a journal club are keeping up with the advances
in the literature, learning and applying evidence-based
medicine and discussing the clinical relevance of research
data [2,3].
There are significant data on postgraduate journal clubs,
however, there is sparce information on undergraduate
journal clubs. Two papers have focused on undergraduate
journal clubs: one used the critique of articles as a method
to teach anatomy [4] and the other used dialectical notes
to increase student discussion and understanding of the
literature of molecular biology [5].

Keywords

Experiences, journal, club

References

• McLeod P, Steinert Y, Boudreau D, Snell L, Wiseman J. Twelve tips for conducting a medical education journal club. Med Teach 2010;5:368-70. doi: 10.3109/01421590903513426
• SVN Research Committee. Practical tips for starting a journal club. J Vasc Nurs 2009;1:18-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jvn.2008.12.002.
• Linzer M. The journal club and medical education: over one hundred years of unrecorded history. Postgrad Med J 1987;740:475-8.
• Havet E, Duparc F, Peltier J, Tobenas-Dujardin AC, Fréger P. The article critique as a problem based teaching methodfor medical students early in their training: a French example using anatomy. Surg Radiol Anat 2012;34:81-4. doi: 10.1007/s00276-011-0911-x.
• McDonough V. Improving journal club: increasing student discussion and understanding of primary literature in molecular biology through the use of dialectical notes. Biochem Mol Biol Educ 2012;40:330-2. doi: 10.1002/bmb.20640.
• Kallen AJ, Wilson CT, Russell MA, et al. Group writing of letters to the editor as the goal of journal club. JAMA 2006;9:1053-4.