We are very excited to announce that the inaugural session for the International Twitter-based Rheumatology Journal Club will start on Thursday, January 29th. There will be two one-hour “live chats”, the first being at 8pm GMT (3pm EST) and the second later that evening at 2am GMT (9pm EST). We hope these sessions will accommodate a global audience, but in case you cannot join during these times, the session will last for a full 24 hours in an asynchronous format so that anyone who wants to participate can. The hashtag for the journal club will be #rheumjc. We will conclude at 8pm GMT on January 30th with a summary of the entire session. The two one-hour live chats will be moderated by members of the RheumJC development team.
The article chosen for our first journal club is titled “Tacrolimus versus mycophenolate mofetil for induction therapy of lupus nephritis: a randomised controlled trial and long-term follow-up“ by Mok, et al. and is published online by the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
The BMJ publishing group has graciously agreed to make the article available open-access beginning now and lasting until the session ends: [CLICK HERE for access to open access article].
Since this is our first go around at this, there are bound to be some bumps along the way. Please read the part of this website called “getting started” to get some tips on how to make the most of this session and not get too bogged down. Some additional pointers:
- Please remember to try to stay on topic whenever possible
- Be polite and courteous
- Do not violate HIPAA
Here is a starting point which can help as you prepare for participation in the discussion. The Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) International Network is a non-profit organization for people promoting skills in finding, critically appraising and acting on the results of research papers. Authored by the Public Health Resource Unit, NHS, England , the CASP initiative has published several checklists for the critical appraisal of research articles: http://www.caspinternational.org/?o=1012.
During the discussion we hope to cover many of these points.
In the future, we welcome suggestions for papers for discussion. The plan is to host about one journal club a month. Please send your suggestions by Direct Message on Twitter to @RheumJC. If you are having difficulty getting hold of the paper nominated for discussion, please contact us and we will do what we can to be of assistance. Our goal is to have all papers be made at least temporarily open access for the week leading up to the journal club session.