Department of Internal Medicine
Pulmonary, Critial Care, and Occupational Medicine Fellowship Program
Pulmonary Journal Club
Faculty Responsible: Karl Thomas, M.D.
Target Audience: Pulmonary Fellows in training
Goals:
To provide an understanding of medical literature (both printed and electronic format):
- Improve understanding of medical literature
- Learn how to find medical literature
- Obtain some working knowledge of the publishing process
- Learn some processes of critical review
Design of the Conference:
The conference is held for one hour monthly. The basic format is that all participants are provided with appropriate articles prior to the conference. Each pulmonary fellow is assigned one or two articles to present. We stress that the understanding of medical literature has multiple dimensions, including the preconceived perceptions of the authors and readers. Topics to be covered include:
- Medical literature search strategies
- Medical journal club formats, purposes, and effectiveness
- Perception
- Errors and fraud
- History of discovery in Pulmonary medicine
- How to evaluate the medical literature
- Review articles reporting major new clinical observations
Evaluation:
The Journal Club content and success is reviewed informally with fellows and is self evaluated every 4-6 months in open discussions.