What does the pharmacy team need to know? Well, for starters, we need to know the obvious stuff like side effects and drug interactions.
And let’s say you’re presenting a journal club to the pharmacy team about a new drug that was just approved for some type of cancer.
Make sure that you’re presenting information that your audience will find useful.įor example, let’s say you are a student taking Brandon’s APPE rotation (you lucky duck, you). What do they need to know? Why is this important to them? The information that a pharmacist finds relevant is very different than that of a Nurse Practitioner. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. You’ll do yourself a favor by getting comfortable evaluating less-than-ideal publications (the better to hone your BS Detector!).Īctually, this is a good rule for every presentation. You won’t always have data from the gold standard Phase 3 Randomized Controlled Trial. Or you might specialize in an area (e.g., oncology) where drugs can get an accelerated approval based on their Phase 2 results. It’s just that, in the future, you may be managing patient populations that don’t make the front page of NEJM. Just to be clear, we’re not saying that you should always choose articles of poor quality. The trick is to recognize the things that make the study lower quality. Believe it or not, you can learn a lot from a BAD journal article - in fact, one might argue you can learn MORE from a bad article than a great one.
Unless your preceptor tells you otherwise, feel free to peruse different journals, even those that have lower impact factor scores (gasp!). You may as well make it fun and beneficial for yourself by picking something that piques your interest or even something that you know is a weak spot for you. But to do a journal club right, you need to learn more about the underlying disease state (more on this in a bit). Yes, we know it’s “high quality” and has the article sections nicely organized to match your presentation template. Don’t just pick blindly from the latest NEJM. We encourage you to find a topic that you’re genuinely interested in learning more about. If you’re on an infectious disease rotation, it’s probably best not to suggest an article about the latest findings in heart failure. So…what do you choose? Obviously, your starting criteria should be the topic of your rotation. Second, put some thought into WHAT topic to present.ĭepending on if you are a student or not (and depending on the preferences of your preceptor), you often will get some say in deciding which journal article to present. And, through thoughtful discussion, you’re all better equipped to tackle the difficult drug-related questions that come at you from prescribers and patients. By sharing knowledge and insight, your efforts can compound to the whole group. Get a group of clinicians together to discuss an article, and they all leave the discussion as slightly better clinicians. When you do it right, everyone in your audience benefits from your journal club. To improve your ability to communicate that information to others To develop your ability to sift through minefields of clinical data and formulate an evidence-based plan for your patients Broadly speaking, they apply whether you are a student, resident, or a seasoned practitioner: There are several reasons to do a journal club. We’ll give you a hint - the answer isn’t, “ Because my preceptor told me to,” or “ To satisfy a requirement for my P4 portfolio.” Journal Club Preparation: What to do Before Your Presentationīefore starting, take a moment to consider WHY you’re doing a journal club in the first place. This article will teach you the ins and outs of conducting your own damn journal club (don’t worry, we’ll try our best to stay off of our soapbox). There isn’t necessarily a “right” way to do a journal club, but there is definitely a “wrong” way. Sometimes, as both a student and a real-life practicing pharmacist, you’ll have to lead a journal club, which brings us to the topic of today’s post.