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September 19, 2011

A Scrutiny of the Introduction

Here's a great, short essay by Jon F. Claerbout about how to write a good introduction to a scientific article. From the essay:

"You might be able to produce a good introduction without following my formula but if you have trouble producing one that pleases other people (and you would like to finish it and get on with your life), then I suggest you follow my formula."

Posted by rbrent at 02:59 PM | Comments (0)

Journal Club 10/5/2011

Mark A Albanese, George Mejicano, Patricia Mullan, Patricia Kokotailo, Larry Gruppen. Defining characteristics of educational competencies. Volume 42, Issue 3, pages 248–255, March 2008

We're kicking off the 2011-2012 Journal Club with a prelude to Larry Gruppen's Brownbag talk on 10/12, tentatively titled "Competency-based education: defining the competencies of medical educators."

Get a head start and read it early, submit comments here (likes, dislikes, follow-up citations, etc.). As always, article suggests are always welcome.

Posted by rbrent at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

Double Header Talk on Thursday 9/22 at 2:00pm

Double header on Thursday, September 22, 2:00pm to 4:00pm in 4448 East Hall (on Church St. between S. University and N. University).

Downs suggests reading this paper:
Strategies for Promoting Healthier Food Choice
which has some really cool, unexpected results about the impact of food labeling on health behaviors. From the article:

"In combination, these studies suggest that providing calorie information may have small effects on food choices, but may also produce perverse effects, such as promoting higher calorie consumption among dieters."

Read on!

Posted by rbrent at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2011

Quality of Life, Burnout, Educational Debt, and Medical Knowledge Among Internal Medicine Residents


UMich in medical education! A brand new JAMA article.

Dr. Kolars (with some collegues from Mayo) studied causes of physician distress in residents nationwide. A survey of over 16,000 residents found about 15% of residents were very upset about their lives, about 52% had higher levels of emotional exhaustion. These symptoms were associated with high levels of debt and lower levels of medical knowledge.


West CP, Shanafelt TD, Kolars JC. Quality of life, burnout, educational debt, and medical knowledge among internal medicine residents. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. 2011;306(9):952–960.

Posted by rbrent at 08:04 AM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2011

2011-2012 Journal Club is in the planning stages

Here we go! Please feel free to suggest articles.

Posted by rbrent at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)