Developing critical appraisal skills: engaging medical students with the literature to write, review and publish journal articles

1. Introduction/background:
Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift towards the practice of evidence-based medicine. Remaining current with new research and clinical developments are important priorities for health professionals. Consequently, the ability to appraise literature has become an important skill to teach medical students that also helps build their confidence to engage in inter-professional communication and aspire for peer-reviewed publications.

2. Purpose/objectives:
A structured semester-long course to extend students’ critical appraisal skills has been implemented into the University of Queensland’s MBBS program.

Based upon key literature recommendations for teaching critical appraisal, it focuses on how medical students can incorporate an evidence-based approach into their clinical practice. The course assessment requires students to apply their developed skills through the critical appraisal of current literature relevant to an assigned topic and writing a ‘letter to the editor’ on their topic to an appropriate scientific journal.

3. Issues/questions for exploration or ideas for discussion
A quantitative experimental design is being used to evaluate outcomes in terms of students’ ability to achieve a basic competence in critical appraisal, and the effectiveness of this course to engage students with the medical literature as a pathway for intra-professional dialogue between medical students, clinicians and researchers. The findings of the research (not yet available) and possible recommendations will be discussed.

The ability to appraise literature for clinical developments, health interventions and wider healthcare policy issues is an essential skill for all health professionals; hence our project outcomes have potential relevance to others involved in health professional education.