University of North Carolina Emergency Medicine Residency
Journal Club Presentation Outline
General Presentation Guidelines: Give a brief overall assessment of the article and then
proceed to address each of the following questions. Limit the formal presentation time to a
total of 10-15 minutes.
1. INTRODUCTION
a. What is the generally accepted current practice in this area?
b. What question does this paper try to answer?
c. Is this a question that you think is worth answering?
d. Who funded the study?
2. METHODS
a. What is the study design?
b. What is the study population?
c. Is this similar to ours (external validity)?
d. What were the inclusion/exclusion criteria?
e. What is the intervention?
f. Is the control comparison considered current standard of care?
g. When was the study conducted?
h. What outcome measurements do the authors use?
i. Could you replicate the study with the information given?
3. BIAS
a. Is there evidence of selection bias?
b. Is there bias in classifications of disease or measurements?
c. Are there any other forms of bias present?
4. RESULTS
a. Are the outcomes clinically relevant?
b. What are the results and how are they presented?
c. Can you identify other results that you might want to see that are not presented?
d. To what extent does the study establish a causal relationship between two
variables (internal validity)?
e. Was a power analysis performed?
5. DISCUSSION
a. Are limitations addressed?
b. Have confounding variables been discussed?
6. CONCLUSION
a. Do the results of the study support the conclusion?
b. Will this change your clinical practice?
c. If you were going to do research in this area, what would be your next study?
Based upon Atzema C. Presenting at journal club: A guide. Ann Emerg Med 2004;44:169-174.