What is the importance of journal clubs for junior doctors and medical students? Is it really bridging the gap between medical education and clinical practice?
being a doctor is not a lolly job...and as world's first doctors in India have doctrined and I quote "a doctor is researcher, teacher and healer simultaneously or otherwise'.
The young doctors must know research as well train in teaching as research needs them they being the best brains, and they need teaching as by teaching yourself your strengthen your knowledge. In old times and even today in India the doctors of Indian medicine called "vaidya" are capable to the extent that they can explore, prepare and formulate their own medicine and prescribe.
pg students tend to learn whats going on in the field of medical sciences, what are the methods and challenges. They get to know the methods of not just research but also how journals are selected and presented. At all times, we must also know the laborious workers in field who have contributed and are contributing to our field and they must be remembered and regarded by learning their work.
students also have to know the methods in med education, clinical training, experimental techniques, instrumental understanding, beside field study n all. Its a very essential part of postgrad training.
I am a medical student and started a journal club with some colleagues: I find it very helpful to look for the evidence of a therapy or diagnostic process we see in our clinical rotations and ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing and if we maybe should do something differently.
Also, EBM needs practice - critical appraisal is not easy and if we don't use it on a regular base we forget everything university teaches us about best practice in research, methodology and so on..
Critical appraisal of published research is essential for resident doctors, as they learn practicing the Evidence Based Medicine. At the undergraduate level, they learn mostly from textbooks and class notes. However, as a practitioner, they require the skill of analyzing recent updates and guidelines before applying these in clinical practice. Discussing the published literature in terms of sample population, study design, limitations, relevance and comparison with previous studies to formulate an evidence for practice must be an essential part of postgraduate training.
Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), with all its drawbacks, still holds out a lot of promise. But the plethora of scientific journals and the resultant articles can leave most of us quite confused. Critical analysis of the articles is one of the methods that can help us sift real EBM from the others and that's where the " Journal Club " helps.