As a Medical Journal Club, we read, analyze, and discuss recently published and medically-relevant journal articles from prestigious journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of The American Medical Association, and Nature Medicine among others. We also discuss medicine within a socio-political context by discussing controversial biomedical issues.

We convene every two weeks on Fridays at 4 pm in TCL 202. During each meeting 1-2 students will present a PowerPoint presentation on a medically-relevant journal article they found interesting; then we will discuss medicine in the news; and, finally we conclude with a TED MED video that often analyzes medicine at the intersection of the scientific and the social.

During the first 20 minutes of our meeting, 1-2 members will briefly summarize the contents of the paper, and afterwards, we will critique the paper – is the data sufficient? how relevant is the investigation? are the results valid? are the methods ethical? In addition to critiquing the paper, we also discuss the implications of these scientific findings – what future directions can the research project take? how will these findings impact the field of medicine and the lives of patients?

For the next 20 minutes, we spend time discussing medicine in the news, covering topics such as euthanasia, overprescription of psychoactive drugs, etc.

For the final 20 minutes of our meeting we end our discussion with a TED MED video that is relevant to one of the topics we discussed either in the PowerPoint presentation or in the segment on medicine in the news.

Our club’s aim is to facilitate an ongoing discussion among students interested in medicine outside of the classroom setting. We wish to encourage students to remain up-to-date with the most current debates on medicine among researchers, doctors, and the general public. We also encourage students to improve their critical reading and analysis of dense, scientific papers, and to hone their presentation skills so they can effectively communicate the scientific content and relevance of medical research within the medical field, as well as, beyond it.