The Second #TwitJC Twitter Journal Club

14 06 2011

In the previous post I wrote about  a new initiative on Twitter, the Twitter Journal Club (hashtag #TwitJC). Here, I shared some constructive criticism. The Twitter Journal Club is clearly an original and admirable initiative, that gained a lot of interest. But there is some room for improvement.

I raised two issues: 1. discussions with 100 people are not easy to follow on Twitter, and 2. walking through a checklist for critical appraisals is not the most interesting to do (particularly because it had already been done).

But as one of the organizers explained, the first session was just meant for promoting #twitjc. Instead of the expected 6 people, 100 tweople showed up.

In the second session, last Sunday evening, the organizers followed a different structure.

Thus, I thought it would only be fair, to share my experiences with the second session as well. This time I managed to follow it from start to finish.

Don’t worry. Discussing the journal club won’t be a regular item. I will leave the organization up to the organizers. The sessions might inspire me, though, to write a blog post on the topic now and then. But that may only work synergistic. (at least for me, because it forces me to rethink it all)

This time the discussion was about Rose’s Prevention Paradox (PDF), a 30 year old paper that is still relevant. The paper is more of an opinion piece, therefore the discussion focused on the implications of the Prevention Paradox theory. It was really helpful that Fi wrote an introduction to the paper, and a Points of Discussion beforehand. There were 5 questions (and many sub-questions).

I still found it very hard to follow it all at Twitter, as illustrated by the following tweet:

  • laikas I think I lost track. Which question are we? #twitjc Sun Jun 12 20:07:03
  • laikas @MsPhelps ik werd wel helemaal duizelig van al die tweets. Er zijn toch wel veel mensen die steeds een andere vraag stellen voor de 1e is beantwoord -9:47 PM Jun 12th, 2011 (about instant nausea when seeing tweets rolling by and people already posing a new question before the first one is answered)

I followed the tweets at http://tweetchat.com/room/twitjc. Imagine tweets rolling by and you try to pick up those tweets you want to respond to (either bc they are very relevant, or because you disagree). By the time you have finished your tweet, already 20 -possibly very interesting tweets- passed by, including the next question by the organizers (unfortunately they didn’t use the official @twitjournalclub account for this).

Well, I suppose I am not very good at this. Partly because I’m Dutch (thus it takes longer to compose my tweets), partly because I’m not a fast thinker. I’m better at thorough analyses, at my blog for instance.

But this is Twitter.  To speak with Johan Cruyff, a legendary soccer-player from Holland, “Every disadvantage has its advantage”.

Twitter may not favor organized discussions, but on the other hand it is very engaging, thought-provoking and easy accessible. Where else do you meet 100 experts/doctors willing  to exchange thoughts about an interesting medical topic?

The tweets below are in line with/reflect my opinion on this second Twitter Journal Club (RT means retweeting/repeating the tweet):

  • laikas RT @themattmak: @fidouglas @silv24 Congratulations again on a great #twitjc. Definitely more controversial and debate generating than last week’s! -9:18 PM Jun 12th, 2011
  • laikas @silv24 well i think it went well (it is probably me, I’m 2 slow). This paper is broad, evokes much discussion & many examples can B given -9:45 PM Jun 12th, 2011
  • DrDLittle Less structure to #twitJC last night but much wider debate 7:41 AM Jun 13th, 2011
  • amitns @DrDLittle It’s obviously a very complex topic, more structure would have stifled the debate. A lot of food for thought.#twitJC -7:45 AM Jun 13th, 2011

Again, the Twitter Journal Club gained a lot of interest. Scientist and teachers consider to borrow the concept. Astronomers are already preparing their first meeting on Thursday… And Nature seems to be on top of it as well, as it will interview the organizers of the medical and the astronomy journal club for an interview.

Emergency Physician Tom Young with experience in critically appraisal just summarized it nicely: (still hot from the press):

The two meetings of the journal club so far have not focussed in on this particular system; the first used a standard appraisal tool for randomised controlled trials, the second was more laissez-faire in its approach. This particular journal club is finding its feet in a new setting (that of Twitter) and will find its strongest format through trial and error. indeed, to try to manage such a phenomenon might be likened to ‘herding cats’ that often used description of trying to manage doctors, and I think, we would all agree would be highly inadvisable. Indeed, one of its strengths is that participants, or followers, will take from it what they wish, and this will be something, rather than nothing, whatever paper is discussed, even if it is only contact with another Tweeter, with similar or divergent views. 

Indeed, what I gained from these two meetings is that I met various nice and interesting people (including the organizers, @fidouglas and @silv24). Furthermore, I enjoyed the discussions, and picked up some ideas and examples that I would otherwise wouldn’t know about. The last online meeting sparked my interest in the prevention paradox. Before the meeting, I only read the paper at a glance. After the session I decided to read it again, and in more detail. As a matter of fact I feel inspired to write a blog post about this theory. Originally I planned to write a summary here, but probably the post is getting too long. Thus I will await the summary by the organizers and see if I have time to discuss it as well.

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Categories : Medical/Clinical stuff, Prevention, Twitter