Evidence-based medicine journal club.docVIP

Available online /content/8/6/401 Editorial Evidence-based medicine journal club Eric B Milbrandt1 and Jean-Louis Vincent2 1Assistant Professor, Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, USA 2Head of Department of Intensive Care, Erasme Hospital (Free University of Brussels), Brussels, Belgium Corresponding author: Eric B Milbrandt, milbeb@ Published online: 3 November 2004 Critical Care 2004, 8:401-402 (DOI 10.1186/cc3005) This article is online at /content/8/6/401 ? 2004 BioMed Central Ltd Critical Care is introducing a new section to the website () – the evidence-based medicine journal club. The aim of this section is to help individuals to evaluate critically the current literature and assess the likelihood of it changing clinical practice. medicine to evaluate an article critically, we seek to answer two questions [7]. First, are the results of the study valid? Second, are the results clinically useful? Many young trainees are frustrated with their early journal club experiences because too often the more senior faculty focus on the minutiae that make the answer to the first question ‘maybe’ or ‘no’, without giving a satisfactory answer to the second question. A journal club is a group of individuals who meet regularly to evaluate critically the clinical application of recent articles in the medical literature. As an entity, journal clubs have a long history in postgraduate medical education, which is well documented by Linzer [1]. The earliest reference to a journal club is found in a book of memoirs and letters by the late Sir James Paget [2], a British surgeon and one of the founders of modern pathology. He describes a group at St. The Department of Critical Care Medicine in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine was the first academic department of critical care medicine in the USA, and it has established an international reputation