After a year of successful BEMC talks and seeing the BEMC grow,  it was time for something new. We are starting a new journal club within the BEMC community, purely focussed on methods. The text below describes what we are going to to do, starting in February. (text comes from the BEMC website)

BEMC is trying something new: a journal club. In february, we will start a monthly journal to accompany the BEMC talks as an experiment. The format is subject to change as we will adapt after gaining more experience in what works and what not. For now, we are thinking along the following lines:

Why another journal club?

Aren’t we already drowning in Journal clubs? Perhaps, but not with this kind of journal club. BEMC JClub is focussed on the methods of clinical research. Many epidemiological inclined researchers work at departments who are not focussed on methodology, but rather on a disease or field of medicine. This is reflected in the topics of the different journal clubs around town. We believe there is a need for a methods journal club in Berlin. Our hope for the BEMC JClub is to fulfill that need through interdisciplinary and methodological discussions of the papers that we read.

Who is going to participate?

First of all, please remember that the BEMC community focussed on researchers with a medium to advanced epidemiological knowledge and skill set. This is not only true for our BEMC talks, but also for our JClub.

Next to this, we hope that we will end up with a good group that reflects the BEMC community. This means that we are looking for a group with a nice mix in background and experience. That means that if you think you have unique background and focus in your work, we highly encourage you to join us and make our group as diverse as possible. We strive for this diversity as we do not want the JClub sessions to become echo chambers or teaching sessions, but truly discussions that promote knowledge exchange between methodologist from different fields.

What will we read?

Anything that is relevant for those who attend. The BEMC team will ultimately determine which papers we will read, but we are nice people and listen carefully to the suggestions of regulars. Sometimes we will pick a paper on the same (or related) topic of the BEMC talk of that month.

Even though the BEMC team has the lead in the organisation, the content of the JClub should come from everybody attending. Everybody that attends the Jclub is asked to provide some points, remarks or questions to jumpstart the discussion.

What about students?

Difficult to say. The BEMC JClub is not designed to teach medical students the basics in epidemiology. Then again, everybody who is smart, can keep up and contribute to the discussion is welcome.

Are you a student and in doubt whether the BEMC JClub is for you? Just send us an email.

Where? When?

Details like this can on the BEMC Jclub website. Just click here.