1 “A History Lesson”
To provide a historical perspective on the development of original medical literature as we know it today.
• History of first medical papers
• History of The Lancet
• How and why the medical literature has grown
2 “Searching for the Right Stuff”
To provide skills in searching electronic databases and other resources for the best available evidence.
• Organization of Medline
• Searching Medline
• Accessing and searching evidence-based medicine databases
• Searching the Internet for the best available evidence
3 “Anatomy of a Research Article”
To provide an overview of the structure of most original medical research articles and to describe the process through which articles are published
• Basic structure of research articles and the purpose of each component
• Principles of peer review, editorial freedom and author confidentiality
• Types of research articles and journals Three
4 A Statistics Primer
To provide an overview of essential descriptive & comparative statistics for practicing physicians
• Basic, descriptive statistics
• Normal and other distributions
• Samples & populations
• Principles of comparative statistics
• Principles underlying all tests of significance
5 Diagnostic Reasoning
To provide an overview of how doctors think about diagnosis, how diagnostic tests are developed and evaluated, and how studies about diagnostic tests should be evaluated
• Psychology of medical diagnosis
• Developing and assessing a new diagnostic test
• Tools for evaluating diagnostic tests (sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood ratios, Bayes Theorem, ROC curves)
6 Studying Therapies
To provide an overview of how new therapies are evaluated (including different research designs and summary and analysis of results)
• Elements of “sound” clinical questions
• Research designs used to evaluate new therapies (including Bayesian designs)
• Analysis of results of new therapies (p values, confidence intervals, etc.)
7 Risk & Prognosis
To provide an overview of how doctors and patients think about risk and prognosis and how risk and prognosis are systematically evaluated
• Measures of risk
• Study designs used to assess risk
• Patient preferences with respect to risk
• Measures of prognosis (i.e. survival curves, etc.)
8 Systematic Reviews
To provide an overview of the principal characteristics and usefulness of qualitative and quantitative (meta-analyses) systematic reviews.
• Definitions of qualitative & quantitative systematic reviews
• The Cochrane Collaboration
• Principles of meta-analyses
• Interpretation of systematic reviews
9 Decision Analysis To provide a basic overview of the design and interpretation of decision analyses
• Definition and purpose of decision analysis
• Interpretation of decision analyses
10 Clinical Practice Guidelines
To provide an overview of the purpose, development and use of clinical practice guidelines
• Definition and purpose of clinical practice guidelines
• Steps in development of “sound” clinical practice guidelines
• Use of guidelines to aid in patient care decisions
11 Qualitative Research
To provide an overview of qualitative methods to address questions of importance to physicians and patients
• Definition of qualitative research
• Summary of qualitative research methods
• How to use qualitative research in patient care decisions
Appendix
• Answers to problems
• Glossary of terms
Estimate of total number of pages excluding index: 220
