How

to give a Journal Club

Expecta6ons of the presenter and
the audience

The Purpose
Discuss latest clinical trials in nephrology with
a large number of healthcare providers
Use crowd-sourcing techniques (though on a
smaller scale) to understand a trial and
whether it has implica6ons for clinical prac6ce
Learn from the crowd on how to read and
interpret scien6c data so that you are not
duped into believing something that is false

Journal Club is Boring

Desais equa6on

Educa6onal journal club = [percentage of minutes you remain awake/(number of pages you
get * (1 - availability of free food))]quality of ar6cle

To make journal club *not* boring, do the following:

Stay awake (directly related to whether youve read the
ar6cle)
Eat lunch during journal club (it will help you stay awake
too)
Pick a high quality ar6cle (this is key because it aects the
boringness of a journal club exponen6ally

How to select an ar6cle

2 easy steps
Find out which topic you are scheduled to present
Look on the NOD + app the schedule is already
available

Find a prospec6ve or randomized trial to present

No retrospec6ve chart or database reviews
Stay away from DOPPS data, USRDS data, or other databases

No case reports or series

No meta-analyses (unless you know how to interpret
the unique sta6s6cs that are used in such a study
design)

What do you present about the ar6cle

Introduc6on
Why are we even discussing this topic?
Who the he*l cares about this topic?
Presenter cares >> Audience cares

Hasnt this topic already been discussed ad

nauseum? What is so new that we have to have a
journal club devoted to this topic?

What do you present about the ar6cle

Methods
How was this trial conducted
Tell us how pa6ents were or were not chosen
Tell us what the interven6on and control arms
were
Tell us how primary and secondary endpoints
were measured or iden6ed
Tell us all these things and more, but dont focus
on the sta6s6cal tests used at this point in 6me
As the Research conferences pick up steam, youll be
able to include this into your journal club

What do you present about the ar6cle

Results
Tell us the results regarding the primary endpoint
Show us tables and gures that you have already annotated
The annota6ons show us that you analyzed the gures/tables
and processed the informa6on

naked gures/tables are not a good idea to show

naked = gs/tables that you did not annotate

Tell us the results of the secondary endpoints

With annotated gs/tables

Tell us the adverse events or complica6ons

Again, gs/tables should be annotated

Discussion
There are 2 parts to the discussion

What the authors think

What you think

Lets be honest with ourselves and each other

We already know what the authors thinkwe have the paper

and we know how to read
We dont know what you think..and this is what we really care
about

But..I dont know how to think

Ok
Good to know
Thanks for the FYI
Ill remember that

I know how to think

Awesome
Tell us what you think about this trial
How it can or cannot help you
What are you s6ll confused about? What
ques6ons did this trial not answer to your
sa6sfac6on
What do you want to see happen next

Journal club logis6cs

It takes a minimum of 2 weeks to prepare for
1 journal club
No maier who you are, who you think you are, or
who you want to be
If you prepare a journal club in < 2 weeks, well
know and you wont leave a good impression

It takes 30-45 days to nd a suitable ar6cle

Remember, only prospec6ve or RC trials are
allowed

Journal club logis6cs

It takes 1 week to annotate your gures
(unless youre a computer whiz or youve
done it before)
It takes 2 days to prac6ce your journal club at
home
You should prac6ce, because it will leave a good
impression (among other things)

Journal club logis6cs

Dont cut and paste
cut and paste is like speeding
Everyone does it, admits that its wrong for
someone else to do it, gripes when they get
caught for doing it, but keeps on doing it trying to
see if they get caught again, all the while
admonishing others for doing it, and energe6cally
complaining each subsequent 6me they are
caught doing it, and on and on and on

Journal Club logis6cs

I will not tell you to not cut and paste
Your journal club presenta6on must meet the
following requirements:
Maximum of 6-9 slides (no double digit slide
presenta6ons)
Can only contain the following words:
Introduc6on, methods, results, discussions, ques6ons,
future direc6ons

But please feel free to cut and paste

Journal club logis6cs

Make notes on paper or a notecard or your
iPad or your iPhone
Use those notes during your presenta6on
Use tons of images, gures, tables, graphs
(since you really cant use a lot of words)

Why so few words?

The problem with cuqng and pas6ng is that
you wont learn anything
Cuqng and pas6ng does not improve your
reten6on of the paper you just read and
presented
In modern day medicine, you need to remember
the data you present so you can prac6ce more
eciently and correctly

While cuqng and pas6ng is quick and easy,

its a total disservice to your educa6on

But what about my audience

My audience relies on my slides to learn about the trial
I am presen6ng
Without the ability to cut and paste, how will they know
anything about the trial?

Audience expecta6on: read the trial before you aiend

journal club
Otherwise, you (audience) wont get anything out of it
(except for free food, if there is any) and some pre- and
post-journal club socializing
Reading the trial helps our presenter when s/he asks
ques6ons about the trial results
So not reading does a disservice to both you and the
presenter

The only person who wins is the pharm rep who gets to bring you
food and brainwash you for 15 minutes

But I need to cut and paste because

my English grammar is poor
No, its not

Final points about journal club

Its not about having fun
Not everything in life is about having fun
Journal club is an essen6al scholarly ac6vity that I
guarantee you will miss once you enter private
prac6ce
Take it seriously because 1) it is a serious ac6vity
and 2) we take it seriously

If you learn from journal club, it will

automa6cally be fun

Schedule
Journal club schedule is available on the NOD+
app star6ng.now

Thank you for your 6me

Youve been a wonderful audience