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

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

1. 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
2. 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.
3. Linzer M. The journal club and medical education: over one hundred years of unrecorded history. Postgrad Med J 1987;740:475-8.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.