What is a Journal Club?
Whether you are in pharmacy school or seeking another professional degree, you will be required to participate in or present a journal club from time to time. For those who are wondering what a journal club is, you have come to the right place. I am here today to explain what a journal club means and how to successfully present and participate in one.
Let’s begin with some basics.
What is a journal club?
A journal club is essentially a group of people coming together to critically evaluate a scientific study. If you are still in school, you might do this with your fellow students, or with other residents during residency or even as pharmacists and physicians. The discussion involves a presenter who is sort of in charge and facilitates the discussion and participants.
Next, what is the purpose of it? Why are we doing this?
Journal club serves many purposes and is actually a very genius idea. First, it is a great way to stay in touch with recent publications and findings. Each journal club you attend as a presenter or a participant, you get to learn something new. Second, it improves your interpersonal and presentation skills. You get to interact with other healthcare providers, participate in engaging discussions and gain more confidence as a presenter. Lastly and most importantly, you learn how to effectively critique a publication. For example, someone tells you there is a study that concluded that clopidogrel is better than aspirin for secondary prevention of stroke. (this is not an actual study, just an example). Would you take that conclusion as is and start implementing that to your practice or would you prefer reading the study in depth, evaluating it and drawing your own conclusion and significance on clinical practice?
I hope it’s the latter. Therefore, the main goal of a journal club is to boost your critical thinking skills, learn how to read a study, what things to look out for and how to come up with your own conclusion.
Now, I have mentioned a few times that you can be either the presenter or an attendee. So, lets first discuss what it means to be the presenter.
As a presenter you or your preceptor (if there is one) will choose the time, date and location and the scientific paper you want to discuss. You want to know the article inside and out. Read it a few times and really get into the depth of it. You will also prepare a one-two page outline or a summary of the article as a reference sheet for the audience. Print out a few copies and bring them with you.
Okay back to your role as a presenter. The day of your journal club, you will begin by providing a quick summary of the study. It is essentially all the information you put in your handout. Don’t go into too much detail as the audience is expected to read the article beforehand and also, hold on to your critique. After you go through that quick summary (should not take more than 10 minutes ideally), then begins the “discussion”…
Okay, this always seems the scary part but does not have to be. Stay confident and remember, nobody knows the article as well as you do. You are the boss in that room. And what is great about being a presenter is that after you present the summary of the article, it’s the audiences’ turn to speak up and answer your questions.
So here is what happens next. The discussion begins with a series of questions. You break it down into sections and there will be a template you will be given a template from your institution or preceptor or check out my post “10 tips to successfully present an article” to use my template. For example, you start off with the population section. Now some questions to ask are, Is there a difference between the baseline characteristic? Is the inclusion and exclusion criteria appropriate? What can we say about the external validity of the trial? Etc. etc.
The audience will answer your questions and share their thoughts. You might end up with an audience that is not willing to participate and that often leads to an ineffective discussion but try your best to create a comfortable environment and allow the attendees to share their honest opinion. This is how the discussion continues… you ask them questions, everyone shares their thoughts about what seemed appropriate, what did not make sense, the strengths and weaknesses of the study and then ultimately draw your conclusion. It is also important for you to share your thoughts along the way.
Remember, the goal is to facilitate a discussion and critically appraise the article.
Now if you are an audience member, here’s what you need to do.
Come prepared! I cannot stress this enough. As a student, do not show up to the discussion without reading the article. Most likely your preceptor will be there, and this will not leave the best impression. Be willing to participate. There is no right or wrong here, you just have to share your honest opinion. If something about the study does not make sense to you, bring it up, talk about it and maybe the other members or the moderator will help clarify that for you. Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the study. The idea of a journal club is to critically evaluate it as a group so different perspectives and thoughts can be heard.
I hope you guys now have a better understanding of what a journal club is and what to expect as a presenter and an audience member. Keep following my blog to see more information on this. I am here to help you become a pro at this and impress all of your preceptors.
