The journal club and medical education: over one hundred years of unrecorded history

Sir William Osler organized a journal club at McGill University in 1875, and several authors suggest that journal clubs were found in certain European countries (in particular, Germany and England) prior to that time. The evolution and development of the journal club, however, has not been recorded in the medical literature. Through personal communications and interviews with senior clinicians and historians, I have traced the history of the journal club as an educational modality. In the early 1900s in Germany, journal clubs were routinely found in departments of medicine and medical schools. From 1917-1975, journal clubs evolved into a forum for continuing medical education. Recently, journal clubs have been designed to teach critical appraisal skills to physicians-in-training. Journal clubs are currently found in the fields of medicine, surgery, psychiatry, nursing, pharmacy, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics and geriatric social service. This powerful educational tool has played an active role in medical education for over a century. The journal club should be more formally incorporated into the medical educational curriculum.     

Accidental golf club injuries.

Over a 2 month period, 33 patients with injuries caused by golf clubs were identified among attenders at the accident and emergency department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The vast majority of these were to the face and head, including three compound skull fractures. Attention is drawn to the average age of those injured (8.1 years) and to the fact that only one of the injuries occurred on a golf course. The dangers of unsupervised experimentation with golf clubs by young children are emphasized.     

Impact of a medical journal club on house-staff reading habits, knowledge, and critical appraisal skills. A randomized control trial

The journal club is an established teaching modality in many house-staff training programs. To determine if a journal club improves house-staff reading habits, knowledge of epidemiology and biostatistics, and critical appraisal skills, we randomized 44 medical interns to receive either a journal club or a control seminar series. A test instrument developed by the Delphi method was administered before and after the interventions (mean, five journal club sessions). By self-report, 86% of the house staff in the journal club group improved their reading habits vs 0% in the control group. Knowledge scores increased more in the journal club group than in the control group, and a trend was found toward more knowledge gained as more sessions were attended. Ability to appraise critically a test article increased slightly in each group, but there was no significant difference between the groups. We conclude that a journal club is a powerful motivator of critical house-staff reading behavior and can help teach epidemiology and biostatistics to physicians-in-training.     

院长俱乐部

~~院长俱乐部~~