Journal Clubs for Sharing Research

One of the challenges to living and working in the digital age is staying current with the most up-to-date information. My employer subscribes to relevant journals (nursing and/or education) but my review of them often looks like this: scan the synopsis for each article, flag the ones I want to read and set aside. On top of the required reading I need to do for my professional life, most times, I don’t make it back to those articles.

A strong message I’ve received in LRNT 502 is that knowledge and research is meant to be shared and I feel a sense of obligation in moving forward with that. In the past, a few colleagues and I have attempted to do some informal “Lunch and Learn” sessions. We would meet bi-weekly and everyone would come with something they had learned recently; it could be a journal article, a helpful website, a teaching resource, etc. These would be successful for a few months but would eventually dissolve. My plan for the upcoming academic year is to initiate a more formal “Journal Club” with a focus on research. The Society for Vascular Nursing (n.d.) identifies three designs that may be used as the presentation format for a club:

1. One article (most common & easiest to conduct) 
• Identify audience if 1-article design chosen – select a study that will                                appeal to the group. 
2. One topic (examine several research studies on a single topic – requires expertise to critique).
3. One journal (review all articles within a single journal – NOTE: may not be all research articles).

I work with a small, committed group of faculty and my hope is that, with some clear objectives, we will be able to make this an established routine within our work environment.

Reference:
Society for Vascular Nursing. (n.d.). Practical tips in starting a journal club. Retrieved from http://svnnet.org/uploads/File/JournalClubOutline.pdf