PhD/PsyD How do you keep up with the literature?

[R. Matey]

Now that I’m closer to becoming a real boy, I’m curious how the adults in the room keep up with the literature. I’m especially curious what journals or resources folks find themselves gravitating towards and what to avoid reading. Some of the journals I’ve been reading in graduate school don’t seem terribly relevant to my clinical practice while on internship so I’m curious what seasoned practicing clinicians read or do to keep up.

Thanks!!!


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[AbnormalPsych]

Listservs, access to journals through adjunct teaching gigs and my medical center. Keep up to date with the big ones by reading here and there when I have cancellations. But I'll admit that my journal reading has declined substantially since leaving grad school.

 

[jdawg2017]

Joining twitter and following journals/authors is a big help. I read a lot on my commutes now.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I keep hearing about folks using Twitter for this, which means I probably need to start doing it soon.

Right now, I get digest emails from a handful of journals, and will log in at least once or twice a month to scour recent articles for the journal webpages to which I have access through professional societies. I think UpToDate has a function related to this as well, but I haven't yet used it.

There are also a couple podcrasts I subscribe to, but I haven't checked in on these recently, unfortunately.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

I keep hearing about folks using Twitter for this, which means I probably need to start doing it soon.

I'd recommend finding 1 or 2 people that you like but stay off twitter itself. Then every other month or so scroll through the twitter of those few accounts.

Otherwise, you risk getting overly involved in the twitter culture.

 

[PsyDr]

1) I go to a lot of conferences. You’ll figure out which ones are useful and which ones are more about adding something to people’s CVs/have nothing to do with actual practice pretty quick. I strongly prefer medical conferences. You can also do conferences where you can do fun trainings. Can’t handle sitting through another set of useless presentations about how small minority population A might possibly feel about rare event B and score weird on test C.

2) I read a LOT. There’s a lot of utility in reading both professional books and semi professional books. Once you get those you can trace the references.

3) UpToDate

4) digest versions of many many listservs

5) podcasts like a mofo

6) audio digest, sometimes.

7) getting curious and or mad and reading about all sorts of subjects. How did the old neuropsychs determine tumor type? What is the heritability of X personality trait or psychopathology? What traits are correlated with financial success/intelligence/happiness? Who defines pain? How did facial coding systems get involved in marital therapy literature? Is X clinical thing we heard in grad school actually empirically supported? What is the sensitivity and specificity of a neurological examination? What is the median number for how often do married people have sexual intercourse? What does the law say about how to hire individuals with intellectual disabilities? What does the research say about outcomes for severe tbi?

 

[pediatric_psydoc]

I am a subscriber to the journals of APA divisions 53 and 54. I still get paper copies, which can be a blessing and a curse I suppose. If there was an app that kept me logged in and didn’t require logging in every time, I’d probably just read on my iPad.

I listen to podcasts, particularly for the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. So some journals do have podcasts, which is nice.

There are google alerts you can get on certain topics or certain researchers. I do that.

I would stay away from Twitter due to the questionable accuracy of the content.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

agree with all the above. personally I really love listservs, but some are better than others (e.g., PSYLaw is solid, the ABPP forensic one only for boarded folks is better, there are some pseudo-sciencey ones as well though).

 

[WisNeuro]

1) I go to a lot of conferences. You’ll figure out which ones are useful and which ones are more about adding something to people’s CVs/have nothing to do with actual practice pretty quick. I strongly prefer medical conferences. You can also do conferences where you can do fun trainings. Can’t handle sitting through another set of useless presentations about how small minority population A might possibly feel about rare event B and score weird on test C.

But where else am I going to find superspecific norms for my patient who grew up in Texas, but moved to Illinois, and prefers Fruity Pebbles to Froot Loops?

 

[PsyDr]

But where else am I going to find superspecific norms for my patient who grew up in Texas, but moved to Illinois, and prefers Fruity Pebbles to Froot Loops?

You mean the same patient that only speaks specific dialect of Tagalog, is ethnically Uyghurs, completed 5 years of education of uncertain quality in Kenya, has mariannnas trench encephalopathy, and the referral source wants to know their level of functionality?

 

[WisNeuro]

You mean the same patient that only speaks specific dialect of Tagalog, is ethnically Uyghurs, completed 5 years of education of uncertain quality in Kenya, has mariannnas trench encephalopathy, and the referral source wants to know their level of functionality?

Exactly!

 

[Sanman]

But where else am I going to find superspecific norms for my patient who grew up in Texas, but moved to Illinois, and prefers Fruity Pebbles to Froot Loops?

I think that the only referral question that really matters is why not cocoa pebbles? The best sugary breakfast cereal. Must be due to TBI.

 

[WisNeuro]

I think that the only referral question that really matters is why not cocoa pebbles? The best sugary breakfast cereal. Must be due to TBI.

diffuse white matter damage knocks out the chocophilic portion of the mesial temporal lobes.

 

[Sanman]

diffuse white matter damage knocks out the chocophilic portion of the mesial temporal lobes.

Well, now there is some motivation to get your cardiovascular health in check...not losing my love of chocolatey goodness.

 

[R. Matey]

Great suggestions! Thanks folks!


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[PsyDr]

diffuse white matter damage knocks out the chocophilic portion of the mesial temporal lobes.

 

[WisNeuro]

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

It was a lot easier when I was at AMCs and active on a number of research projects, mentoring, and publishing regularly. Since I transitioned to PP, it's mostly reading up on areas connected to clinical/legal cases, List Serv browsing, and reading up on social media (mostly Twitter). We do a journal club every couple of months and case reviews, but most of my reading is on my own.

 

[ClinicalABA]

Teaching (e.g. adjunct) and presenting/doing trainings (internally to staff and interns, as well as externally at regional meetings/conferences) is a great way to force yourself to stay on top of things. I aim to review at least 5 research articles per week, and usually come pretty close. It’s much easier during the semesters. Also, you can start article review groups (email or in person) with coworkers.

 

[Ollie123]

Can only imagine how difficult this is in practice. Even in academia, I often joke that the only time I get to read papers now is when I'm asked to be a reviewer. That isn't 100% true, but much truer than I would like it to be. Especially since reading/learning is probably the thing I love most in the field.

Some general suggestions:
- I probably wouldn't bother with 95% of the primary literature unless digging in on something specific. There may be value in skimming abstracts, there is probably little value in reading most primary articles. Stick with meta-analyses, uptodate, cochrane reviews, etc. We have a replication crisis, so with rare exception clinical decision-making should not change based on a single article anyways.
- Always check pubmed. A great many things are freely accessible now even without a journal subscription because of NIH requirements.
- Always be ready to go. I keep a list of articles I want to read handy. Despite converting virtually all possible documentation in my life to digital, I still greatly prefer paper copies for things I want to read deeply (be it an article or a book - if I am the last person on earth with a home library that could be downsized to a kindle, I am fine with that). I have articles printed out in a filing cabinet in my clinic office and will read during no-shows, late arrivals or other downtime. I usually have 1-2 in my laptop bag at all times and will use them waiting for meetings or other nonsense downtime.
- If you don't already, sign up for email searches on your favorite topics via pubmed or feeds straight from journals if there are some particular ones that work for you. I rarely dig deeper than the abstract, but 3 days a week I get an email with a list of articles that came out that week on a given topic. As with any search, half of it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual search terms but you catch some good ones and its an easy way to keep your finger on the pulse of the field. Quick glance through some abstracts - usually over breakfast or something. Rarely spend more than 2-3 minutes on it and have caught a couple major developments to look into further.

 

[R. Matey]

Can only imagine how difficult this is in practice. Even in academia, I often joke that the only time I get to read papers now is when I'm asked to be a reviewer. That isn't 100% true, but much truer than I would like it to be. Especially since reading/learning is probably the thing I love most in the field.

Some general suggestions:
- I probably wouldn't bother with 95% of the primary literature unless digging in on something specific. There may be value in skimming abstracts, there is probably little value in reading most primary articles. Stick with meta-analyses, uptodate, cochrane reviews, etc. We have a replication crisis, so with rare exception clinical decision-making should not change based on a single article anyways.
- Always check pubmed. A great many things are freely accessible now even without a journal subscription because of NIH requirements.
- Always be ready to go. I keep a list of articles I want to read handy. Despite converting virtually all possible documentation in my life to digital, I still greatly prefer paper copies for things I want to read deeply (be it an article or a book - if I am the last person on earth with a home library that could be downsized to a kindle, I am fine with that). I have articles printed out in a filing cabinet in my clinic office and will read during no-shows, late arrivals or other downtime. I usually have 1-2 in my laptop bag at all times and will use them waiting for meetings or other nonsense downtime.
- If you don't already, sign up for email searches on your favorite topics via pubmed or feeds straight from journals if there are some particular ones that work for you. I rarely dig deeper than the abstract, but 3 days a week I get an email with a list of articles that came out that week on a given topic. As with any search, half of it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual search terms but you catch some good ones and its an easy way to keep your finger on the pulse of the field. Quick glance through some abstracts - usually over breakfast or something. Rarely spend more than 2-3 minutes on it and have caught a couple major developments to look into further.

Super helpful. Thank you!


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[jespo51]

There's an app called Researcher, pretty sure it's free. You can personalize your interests and it gives you a ton of recent articles and literature!

 

[R. Matey]

There's an app called Researcher, pretty sure it's free. You can personalize your interests and it gives you a ton of recent articles and literature!

Thanks for that suggestion! I’ll check it out!


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