Diving into Debate: Comparing Discussion-Based and Single-Presenter Journal Club Formats in a Large PM&R Department.

BACKGROUND Journal clubs in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) advance the educational mission by uniting colleagues to learn of literature updates, consider clinical applications, practice critical thinking, and engage in lively dialogue and community. While discussion-based journal clubs have been shown to enhance quality, a model for their application across a large and clinically diverse department of PM&R has not been described, nor has one been evaluated in comparison to a single-speaker podium format. OBJECTIVE To develop a discussion-based PM&R department-wide journal club, present elements of the journal club model in a manner that would enable replication, and assess effectiveness as perceived by participants, compared to the prior (podium-based, single speaker) format. We hypothesized that a discussion-based journal club would more effectively achieve educational goals and would be perceived by participants to be of greater quality and value. DESIGN Pre-post educational intervention study, using surveys of PM&R resident and faculty participants. Survey items used a 5-point Likert scale. Unpaired 2-tailed T tests were used to compare the formats. SETTING A large academic PM&R department. PARTICIPANTS PM&R faculty, residents, fellows: 26 respondents (pre-intervention) and 26 respondents (post-intervention) out of a total of 94 and 98 people invited to participate, respectively. INTERVENTIONS A discussion-based departmental journal club was designed and implemented, replacing the previous single-speaker, podium-based journal club. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Respondent ratings of journal club quality and value (Figure 1B) and effectiveness in achieving specific educational goals (Figure 1A), pre- and post-intervention. RESULTS Compared to the traditional format, the discussion-based format more effectively met the educational objectives, was of higher quality and value as perceived by respondents, and increased desire to attend the activity. CONCLUSIONS This discussion-based journal club format can serve as a model for academic PM&R programs looking to enhance the educational value of journal club. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.