Report from 2/24 meeting and next steps
Michael Dean Brunelle
To do: get caught up - February's almost over!
Quick link to the Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/primary-care-lit
Next meeting: Monday, March 8th, 5pm, Abbott Hall 4th floor (tentative
- RSVP if you have a conflict)
Hello all,
We had good turnout at last night’s long overdue Primary Care Journal
Club meeting (I’d guess 15-20 students plus Dr. Loafman and Dr.
Edberg. I didn’t take an actual head count – just estimating based on
leftover sandwiches). Overall, the students have found the process of
reviewing articles with their physician mentors very enlightening, but
the logistics of getting together have been problematic for many
groups. The most common story seems to be that groups met once back
in December, but haven’t done much since. So don’t worry – you’re not
alone!
We’ll soon be recruiting new participants for the March-May review
cycle, and you can decide whether or not you’d like to hold on to a
journal assignment or two. Of course, we think it would be great if
everybody could regroup in next couple of weeks and get caught up, but
if that can’t happen, don’t worry about it or feel like you can’t come
to any more meetings or share our tasty sandwiches. Just let us know
what journal(s) and issues you didn't/won't review, and we'll figure
something out. Our goal is to develop a process that actually works
for busy medical students and physicians; if what we’re doing now
isn’t working, we’ll scale back or try something else. In the
meantime, we do have some pointers for what groups can do to wrap up
the December – February review cycle on a positive note.
For logistics: Dr. Edberg let us know out that Erie Family Health
Center has a conference call number that can be used to facilitate
phone meeting with the physicians at Erie. This great option for
groups that can’t find the time to get everybody together around the
same table.
The other big issue we started to address was what happens after the
small groups have met. What do you do with the POEMs you find? How
can you learn what the other small groups have found? What are you
supposed to do with that list of questions that Siu-Hin circulated so
many weeks ago? There were some great ideas put forward about how we
can organize and present the information the small groups are
generating, and in the coming weeks we may actually see some of these
ideas take form. Right now, we're focusing on the small group process
starting today, and starting today, groups should use the Google
Groups website (http://groups.google.com/group/primary-care-lit) to
share their findings and let everyone know if they’re caught up or
not.
Every journal we’re reviewing now has its own page that any group
member can edit - it's sort of like a Wikipedia of POEMs. The list of
questions from the previously circulated template document is included
on each journal’s page to get you started. Everything posted so far
is a work in progress, but hopefully there’s enough structure and
instruction that you can figure out what to do – if not, e-mail this
list, and we’ll work through it. So go check it out:
http://groups.google.com/group/primary-care-lit
Our next meeting (another medall open call) needs to happen relatively
soon. It's not ideal, but we don't want the next group to start out
with an onerous backlog, and we also need to avoid spring breaks and
mid/end-unit stress. So let's plan on Monday, March 8 at 5pm in the
Family Med office. I'll try not to reschedule more than 7 or 8 times.
Good luck, good job, and see you in 2 weeks!
MDB
P.S. If you have any difficulty logging into the site (for example,
if you use Gmail but are subscribed to this e-mail list with your
northwestern.edu address), it may be easier to “apply for membership”
with whatever Google Account you usually use and unsubscribe the
address that doesn’t easily let you in. If you don’t know what I’m
talking about, you probably don’t need to worry about it, but if you
need help, feel free to e-mail me directly.
P.P.S. If your group gets lost on the question about "What primary
care diagnosis or condition does this paper address?,” see the AAFP’s
short list of diagnostic codes common in family medicine:
http://www.aafp.org/fpm/icd9/icd9-short.pdf (the top 100
conditions/procedures are flagged with red arrows).
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Michael Dean Brunelle, MSLIS
M.D. candidate, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
brun...@md.northwestern.edu phone: 773-733-0713
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine,
then let us work together." --Lilla Watson
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