OSU OB/GYN Resident Research Curriculum
Source: Lancet Handbook of Essential Concepts in Clinical Research. Kenneth Schulz, David Grimes. Lancet Handbooks, 2006.
A senior- and a junior-resident will prepare a 30 minute didactic review of the assigned chapter each month.
Two other residents (a senior- and a junior-resident) will present a “Journal Club” article, reviewing the article and focusing on the topic of the month. Some options for articles are included below, but residents are encouraged to select their own article. Residents are encouraged to pair up with a Faculty member with an interest in the article’s subject matter for broader clinical perspective.
All residents will have the Lancet text, and will be responsible for reading the assigned chapter and the article in preparation for each monthly session.
Monthly topics:
1. An overview of clinical research
Residents will learn expectations for monthly meetings, and be introduced to research requirements.
2. Descriptive studies
Residents will understand strengths and weaknesses of descriptive studies.
3. Bias and causal associations in observational research.
Residents will learn about research bias, and be able to identify different types of bias, including selection bias, response bias, etc.
4. Cohort studies: marching towards outcome.
Residents will learn what a cohort study is, the difference between case control and cohort studies, and be able to identify and design cohort studies.
5. Case-control studies: research in reverse.
Residents will be able to identify and design a case-control study.
6. Generation of allocation sequences in randomized trials: chance, not choice.
Residents will learn about allocation sequences in randomized control trials, noting strengths and weaknesses of various strategies.
7. Allocation concealment in randomized trials: defending against deciphering.
8. Sample size slippages in randomized trials: exclusions and the lost and wayward.
Residents will learn about sample sizes, patients lost to follow up, and learn appropriately to interpret trials with various exclusions.
9. Blinding in randomized trials: hiding who got what.
Residents will learn about blinding in clinical trials, what it means for a trial to be blinded, and different types of blinded trials.
10. Uses and abuses of screening tests.
Residents will learn about sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values, and negative predictive values. Residents will be able to identify appropriate screening tests, and inappropriate uses of screening tests.
11. Unequal group sizes in randomized trials: guarding against guessing.
12. Sample size calculations in randomized trials: mandatory and mystical.
Residents will learn how to calculate a sample size that helps them answer a research question.
13. Compared to what? Finding controls for case-control studies.
14. Refining clinical diagnosis with likelihood ratios.
Residents will learn about likelihood ratios, and understand differences between likelihood ratios, hazard ratios, and odds ratios.
15. Multiplicity in randomized trials
Residents will learn about endpoints, treatments, subgroup and interim analyses in randomized control trials.