In this episode, I’ll discuss how to guarantee you pick a great article for the journal club.
There are two important criteria that are essential to fulfill when presenting an article to a journal club:
1. The article should be of high quality
2. The article should be relevant to clinical practice
When an article meets these criteria, all parties at the journal club should benefit. Preceptors and other Health Care Providers benefit from being exposed to high-quality articles they may not have otherwise encountered, and students/residents benefit from learning how to place clinical trial results into the context of clinical practice.
Whether you are a pharmacy student or resident looking for a great article for journal club, or a preceptor that wants to make sure journal club articles are high quality, this episode will be helpful to you.
Selecting a high-quality article may be a challenge for many students/residents, and preceptors may not have the time to pre-select approved articles.
Fortunately, there is an easy rule to follow to ensure a student or resident will select a great article independently, every time.
The simple rule is to always pick an article that has a letter to the editor that accompanies the article in the same issue it is published in.
You can be sure that such an article will be of high quality and relevant to clinical practice. Otherwise, the editors of the journal would not have invited expert opinion to accompany the article in the same issue.
But this method also has another benefit that will allow preceptors to take the discussion at journal club to a higher level. When the student or resident reads the accompanying editorial, this will help them understand the historical context of the problem being studied and how the results fit into clinical practice. For example, if the new article is about glucose control in the ICU, you can be sure that the letter to the editor will mention other landmark trials such as 2001 article by Van Den Berghe and NICE-SUGAR.
This will mean the student or resident can demonstrate a deeper understanding of the article in their presentation, and discussion guided by the preceptors can start out at a higher level.
Members of the Hospital Pharmacy Academy have access to trainings on how to run a journal club, and biostatistics for journal club in addition to hundreds of other trainings to help you in your practice. To get immediate access go to pharmacyjoe.com/academy.
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