Journal Club Ideas...

[TysonCook]

Hello,
So I'm now in charge of all things Journal Club at Carolinas, and am looking for some good ideas to revamp our monthly meeting.

If any of you have been part of, or been to an outstanding JC at other institutions, I would be interested in how/what/who made it amazing.

I've already revamped our JC for this year, but I'm still looking to improve as our goal is to make it the best in the country.

Anyone with any ideas please post as there are several of us here that are academic attendings and I'm sure all would like to keep JC on the edge.

Current aspects of our Monthly JC include:
Dropbox for all articles (makes articles accessible to all faculty/residents/alumni)
Vignette and vignette question(s) that introduce a clinical question (and JC is to answer)
Incorporate one LLSA article from the last 3 years
Statistician at most (or at least access to one)
Running list and explanation of at least 2 statistical principles per JC
One yearly lecture on statistics based on the above list
Emailed summary 1 week after summarizing the article, discussion, and 2 statistical principles
Recommendation to change practice based on the data presented

Ideas that I'd like to incorporate:
Including alumni (different practice pattern in small ED's, faster pace, etc)
Electronic streaming (anyone with experience)
Multi-disciplinary JC (include OB, Trauma, etc)
Online resources or demonstrations of statistical principles
Basic text for statistics (for residents)

I'm sure there are more, but I'm just seeing if anyone else can weigh in on things they've experienced and liked.

Anyone with a GOOD JC out there?

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[tegs15]

Check out EMChatter, there are weekly articles listed

 

[EM2BE]

We did one that was all self-defense and how to handle the abusive pts / families in the ED. It was great to get up and learn some moves.

 

[DeadCactus]

Sounds like he's looking more for suggestions on format/features rather than articles...

 

[TysonCook]

I like the idea of a JC theme and hands on, real time practical information.

Any others?

How about in residency? Anyone have a great JC?

 

[dotcb]

Our monthly journal club was driven by choosing a clinical question that the residents got to vote on each month. The presenters then had to review the literature on that question and present 1-3 articles of the best evidence to address it. Overall, it went decently. The problem is that there just isn't a lot of good evidence to answer many important questions. People who don't like literature, EBM, and stats are unlikely to love JC no matter what you do. I think it's good not to spend more that ~15-20 min on stats per session. Another pitfall is that there are so many bad studies out there, it's easy to come away from JC feeling that research is manipulating numbers to make it say what you think is true, or "another poorly done study that doesn't answer anything." For this reason I think it's also key to review important practice-changing articles from, for example, the Colorado Compendium (attached, though there are many important, well-done studies since its creation). Nonetheless, it's important to expose residents to foundational literature for our field. So maybe do a key EM article every session or every other session in addition to their lit search. Hope that helps.

 

[blackavar]

This is still very much in the pilot stage but one of our attendings is tinkering with a Pardon the Interuption (PTI) type format for journal club in conjunction with the more typical format. If you're familiar with the TV show, it'll make a lot more sense, if you're not, go watch an episode and then read the rest.

Basically, you have a panel of discussants, they talk about different aspects of the articles, IE things they liked, things they didn't like for a short period of time. Certain audience members give points/take away points in an arbitrary manner and each round, someone is cut, and they move on to the next article. We've only done it once, and admittedly it was with a smaller group of people, but it was kinda a lot of fun and I found it a bit more engaging then the typical dissection of journal articles.

Something to tinker with and try.