We did it! Drs. James Amos and George Dawson (of the Real Psychiatry blog) and I created a LinkedIn group entitled, Psychiatry Online Lifelong Learning (POLL). Here's the description:
This is a free Psychiatry journal club. Links to free articles, along with managers' initial comments, will be posted at regular intervals. Enthusiastic discussion is highly encouraged.
The purpose of this group is to foster professional interaction and collaboration, and to promote the principle of lifelong learning so important to continued growth as a clinician.
The group is primarily intended for psychiatrists, but anyone with an interest in psychiatry, and a scientific bent, is welcome to apply for membership.
We ask simply that comments be respectful and relevant to the discussion at hand.
And guess what? The first discussion has already begun, kicked off by none other than Dr. James Amos of The Practical Psychosomaticist blog. There's a timely article entitled,
Collaborative Care for Patients with Depression and Chronic Illnesses, byWayne Katon, et al.
So don't delay! Head on over to LinkedIn, and apply for membership. If you don't already have a LinkedIn account, it's free and easy to set one up, and not a bad thing to have, in any case.
We're really excited about this, and we'd like it to be something good for everyone. So please help us, and yourself, out by joining and participating.
Thanks.
Showing posts with label journal club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journal club. Show all posts
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Another Plug
Just a brief reminder to take our survey about whether and how you'd like to participate in an online journal club.
CLICK HERE
And here's a list of some upcoming posts:
1. Journal article review
2. Apps for writing process notes.
3. More on Statistics
CLICK HERE
And here's a list of some upcoming posts:
1. Journal article review
2. Apps for writing process notes.
3. More on Statistics
Friday, September 27, 2013
Online Journal Club Survey
The Practical Psychosomaticist and I are trying to figure out how to set up the FREE online journal club so people will be inclined to participate. There are different potential venues for this, such as continuing to use the comments sections of our blogs, starting a LinkedIn group, or using a Google+ circle.
We really want people to participate, as much as they can, so we're running a survey to see what people's preferences are.
Here's the link:
Online Journal Club Survey
It's a short survey-only three simple questions. There are options to comment, but it'll help us even if you don't comment.
If you're reading this, presumably you have an interest in the practice of psychiatry. So for the purpose of furthering lifelong learning and collaboration between colleagues, please take the survey, and then participate like crazy.
Thanks.
We really want people to participate, as much as they can, so we're running a survey to see what people's preferences are.
Here's the link:
Online Journal Club Survey
It's a short survey-only three simple questions. There are options to comment, but it'll help us even if you don't comment.
If you're reading this, presumably you have an interest in the practice of psychiatry. So for the purpose of furthering lifelong learning and collaboration between colleagues, please take the survey, and then participate like crazy.
Thanks.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Musings
I seem to have a lot of random thoughts floating around in my head. In no particular order:
1. The Practical Psychosomaticist has a new article up for our fledgeling online journal club, entitled
Competency-Based Education, Entrustable Professional Activities, and the Power of Language
It's about new and improved ways to judge progress in residents. You can read my full comment over on the site, but the gist of it (my comment) is that it's an attempt to quantify things that may not be easily quantifiable. So I'm skeptical. But then, I don't trust checklists, in general. Here's me quoting myself (and mixing four different metaphors):
To my way of thinking, it comes down to a mode of teaching and learning. The traditional approach in residency has been an apprenticeship, starting as a scut-monkey PGY1 who just does what she’s told, and progressing to journeyman on graduation. And the entire arc is supervised, hopefully by supervisors who know when to be heavily involved, and when the resident can solo. This is in contrast to a style that involves rigid quantification. I agree that it’s an excellent idea to have specific expectations, and it’s also a great exercise to sit down and think about what makes a good doctor a good doctor. But it’s similar to using checklists to evaluate patients. Checklists have their role. They can be useful for tracking progress. But appropriate use of checklists, like in the Ham-D article, involves the ability to interview the patient. It’s about people getting to know people.
2. I'd really like to continue this journal club idea. But the logistics are more complicated than I anticipated. I was thinking about doing it as a LinkedIn group. Other possibilities include a Facebook page, Google+ Circle, and a separate blog. I'm sure there are other ways to go about it. I'd appreciate suggestions.
3. I read an article in Wired magazine, How Successful Networks Nurture Good Ideas. In it, Clive Thompson writes about the power of collective thinking. He claims that writing for an audience clarifies ideas because "the effort of communicating to someone else forces you to pay more attention and learn more." He then cites several convincing studies and examples.
This has implications for so many things. An online journal club, for example, can reach out to many more people than can be gathered in one room. Think of the possibilities for exchange of ideas! Things like allowing the public access to drug research data, so safety and efficacy can be independently judged. Sites like Change.org, for worldwide petitions, and Fundly.com, for raising money for causes.
There's the flip side. You could conceptualize another article entitled, How Successful Networks Nurture Bad Ideas. Imagine if Hitler had written, Mein Blogge. (Sorry if that offended anyone, it wasn't my intention.)
But on a deeper level, communicating with an audience is what allows me to do my job. A patient comes into my office and somehow manages to articulate scary, icky thoughts and feelings that have been pent up and festering and unshared for years to an audience that includes myself and all the significant figures in the patient's life, as transferred onto me. And then those thoughts and feelings become less scary. And ideas start to congeal. And something in the patient shifts, and his life improves. Just by communicating with an audience. That's real learning.
4. I'm thinking about A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for Panic Disorder, by Milrod et al, as my next journal article. Here's the abstract:
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy relative to applied relaxation training, a credible psychotherapy comparison condition. Despite the widespread clinical use of psychodynamic psychotherapies, randomized controlled clinical trials evaluating such psychotherapies for axis I disorders have lagged. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first efficacy randomized controlled clinical trial of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy, a manualized psychoanalytical psychotherapy for patients with DSM-IV panic disorder. Method: This was a randomized controlled clinical trial of subjects with primary DSM-IV panic disorder. Participants were recruited over 5 years in the New York City metropolitan area. Subjects were 49 adults ages 18–55 with primary DSM-IV panic disorder. All subjects received assigned treatment, panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy or applied relaxation training in twice-weekly sessions for 12 weeks. The Panic Disorder Severity Scale, rated by blinded independent evaluators, was the primary outcome measure. Results: Subjects in panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy had significantly greater reduction in severity of panic symptoms. Furthermore, those receiving panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy were significantly more likely to respond at treatment termination (73% versus 39%), using the Multicenter Panic Disorder Study response criteria. The secondary outcome, change in psychosocial functioning, mirrored these results. Conclusions: Despite the small cohort size of this trial, it has demonstrated preliminary efficacy of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy for panic disorder.
It's an interesting study because it successfully manualized a type of treatment not previously believed to be manualizable. Anyone game?
1. The Practical Psychosomaticist has a new article up for our fledgeling online journal club, entitled
Competency-Based Education, Entrustable Professional Activities, and the Power of Language
It's about new and improved ways to judge progress in residents. You can read my full comment over on the site, but the gist of it (my comment) is that it's an attempt to quantify things that may not be easily quantifiable. So I'm skeptical. But then, I don't trust checklists, in general. Here's me quoting myself (and mixing four different metaphors):
To my way of thinking, it comes down to a mode of teaching and learning. The traditional approach in residency has been an apprenticeship, starting as a scut-monkey PGY1 who just does what she’s told, and progressing to journeyman on graduation. And the entire arc is supervised, hopefully by supervisors who know when to be heavily involved, and when the resident can solo. This is in contrast to a style that involves rigid quantification. I agree that it’s an excellent idea to have specific expectations, and it’s also a great exercise to sit down and think about what makes a good doctor a good doctor. But it’s similar to using checklists to evaluate patients. Checklists have their role. They can be useful for tracking progress. But appropriate use of checklists, like in the Ham-D article, involves the ability to interview the patient. It’s about people getting to know people.
2. I'd really like to continue this journal club idea. But the logistics are more complicated than I anticipated. I was thinking about doing it as a LinkedIn group. Other possibilities include a Facebook page, Google+ Circle, and a separate blog. I'm sure there are other ways to go about it. I'd appreciate suggestions.
3. I read an article in Wired magazine, How Successful Networks Nurture Good Ideas. In it, Clive Thompson writes about the power of collective thinking. He claims that writing for an audience clarifies ideas because "the effort of communicating to someone else forces you to pay more attention and learn more." He then cites several convincing studies and examples.
This has implications for so many things. An online journal club, for example, can reach out to many more people than can be gathered in one room. Think of the possibilities for exchange of ideas! Things like allowing the public access to drug research data, so safety and efficacy can be independently judged. Sites like Change.org, for worldwide petitions, and Fundly.com, for raising money for causes.
There's the flip side. You could conceptualize another article entitled, How Successful Networks Nurture Bad Ideas. Imagine if Hitler had written, Mein Blogge. (Sorry if that offended anyone, it wasn't my intention.)
But on a deeper level, communicating with an audience is what allows me to do my job. A patient comes into my office and somehow manages to articulate scary, icky thoughts and feelings that have been pent up and festering and unshared for years to an audience that includes myself and all the significant figures in the patient's life, as transferred onto me. And then those thoughts and feelings become less scary. And ideas start to congeal. And something in the patient shifts, and his life improves. Just by communicating with an audience. That's real learning.
4. I'm thinking about A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy for Panic Disorder, by Milrod et al, as my next journal article. Here's the abstract:
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy relative to applied relaxation training, a credible psychotherapy comparison condition. Despite the widespread clinical use of psychodynamic psychotherapies, randomized controlled clinical trials evaluating such psychotherapies for axis I disorders have lagged. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first efficacy randomized controlled clinical trial of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy, a manualized psychoanalytical psychotherapy for patients with DSM-IV panic disorder. Method: This was a randomized controlled clinical trial of subjects with primary DSM-IV panic disorder. Participants were recruited over 5 years in the New York City metropolitan area. Subjects were 49 adults ages 18–55 with primary DSM-IV panic disorder. All subjects received assigned treatment, panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy or applied relaxation training in twice-weekly sessions for 12 weeks. The Panic Disorder Severity Scale, rated by blinded independent evaluators, was the primary outcome measure. Results: Subjects in panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy had significantly greater reduction in severity of panic symptoms. Furthermore, those receiving panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy were significantly more likely to respond at treatment termination (73% versus 39%), using the Multicenter Panic Disorder Study response criteria. The secondary outcome, change in psychosocial functioning, mirrored these results. Conclusions: Despite the small cohort size of this trial, it has demonstrated preliminary efficacy of panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy for panic disorder.
It's an interesting study because it successfully manualized a type of treatment not previously believed to be manualizable. Anyone game?
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Lifelong Learning-A New Frontier
This post is tangentially about Maintenance of Certification (MOC). So before I get to the main point, I want to refer readers to Jim Amos' blog, The Practical Psychosomaticist. The link will take you to a form letter to oppose MOC and MOL (Maintenance of Licensure). Dr. Amos generously gives me top credit for it, but it's actually a letter he sent to the AMA and APA, that I modified to make it convenient for other people to use.
Check it out, consider how you feel about MOC and MOL, and if you're so inclined, mail it off.
I've already written about my feelings regarding MOC. So let's get to the main topic, Lifelong Learning. Let's assume the world suddenly becomes a sensible place, and the inane requirements for MOC are done away with. No expensive recertification exam, no dumb PIPs, no useless CME credits. I still consider it my obligation to stay current, so I can take better care of my patients.
What I do now, and would probably continue to do in the aforementioned utopia, is subscribe to The Carlat Report and UpToDate. The Carlat Report doesn't take money from drug companies or other sponsors. And UpToDate is just an excellent resource all around. And no, they're not paying me to write this. (Full Disclosure: I was paid by The Carlat Report for my article in their May edition, but that's the extent of my financial relationship with them).
I've also recently subscribed to NEJM's Journal Watch Psychiatry, but I'm just testing it out at this point, so I can't comment.
But here's a new idea. Or maybe it isn't new, but I don't know about it:
Online Journal Club!
It's the kind of thing that LinkedIn and Facebook lend themselves to. Post a free article online, maybe once a week, allow some time for people to read it, and then ask people to write in and discuss it.
People could suggest articles, and vote on which one they want to read next. And it's free. And collaborative. And the kind of thing I tried to do with my residents, back when I was a unit chief.
A book club would work, too, but that would involve a purchase.
There are all kinds of online learning resources:
MIT's OpenCourseWare
MIT and Harvard's EdX
The Khan Academy
Why not, The Psychiatry Collaboration?
I'd love for readers to comment on this post. Let me know what kind of lifelong learning works for you. Where do you go to stay current? Would you participate in a free online journal club?
How about this article:
A Rating Scale for Depression, by Max Hamilton
J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat., 1960, 23, 56.
I found the link to it on the BMJ site. I've never read it before, and sure, it's from 1960, but it might be interesting and fun to read about the early development of the HAM-D.
Check it out, consider how you feel about MOC and MOL, and if you're so inclined, mail it off.
I've already written about my feelings regarding MOC. So let's get to the main topic, Lifelong Learning. Let's assume the world suddenly becomes a sensible place, and the inane requirements for MOC are done away with. No expensive recertification exam, no dumb PIPs, no useless CME credits. I still consider it my obligation to stay current, so I can take better care of my patients.
What I do now, and would probably continue to do in the aforementioned utopia, is subscribe to The Carlat Report and UpToDate. The Carlat Report doesn't take money from drug companies or other sponsors. And UpToDate is just an excellent resource all around. And no, they're not paying me to write this. (Full Disclosure: I was paid by The Carlat Report for my article in their May edition, but that's the extent of my financial relationship with them).
I've also recently subscribed to NEJM's Journal Watch Psychiatry, but I'm just testing it out at this point, so I can't comment.
But here's a new idea. Or maybe it isn't new, but I don't know about it:
Online Journal Club!
It's the kind of thing that LinkedIn and Facebook lend themselves to. Post a free article online, maybe once a week, allow some time for people to read it, and then ask people to write in and discuss it.
People could suggest articles, and vote on which one they want to read next. And it's free. And collaborative. And the kind of thing I tried to do with my residents, back when I was a unit chief.
A book club would work, too, but that would involve a purchase.
There are all kinds of online learning resources:
MIT's OpenCourseWare
MIT and Harvard's EdX
The Khan Academy
Why not, The Psychiatry Collaboration?
I'd love for readers to comment on this post. Let me know what kind of lifelong learning works for you. Where do you go to stay current? Would you participate in a free online journal club?
How about this article:
A Rating Scale for Depression, by Max Hamilton
J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat., 1960, 23, 56.
I found the link to it on the BMJ site. I've never read it before, and sure, it's from 1960, but it might be interesting and fun to read about the early development of the HAM-D.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)