Student-Run Online Journal Club Initiative During a Time of Crisis: Survey Study

Abstract

Background Since the closure of university campuses due to COVID-19 in spring 2020 necessitated a quick transition to online courses, medical students were isolated from hospitals and universities, negatively impacting their education. During this time, medical students had no opportunity to participate in academic discussions and were also socially isolated. Furthermore, medical doctors and professors of medical schools were given additional responsibilities during the pandemic because they were the frontliners in the fight against COVID-19. As a result, they did not have enough time to contribute effectively to medical student education. Objective This paper describes the establishment of the Cerrahpasa Neuroscience Society Journal Clubs, a group of entirely student-run online journal clubs at Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa. Methods The website, mass emailing, and social media accounts were used to announce the online journal clubs. Only medical students were eligible to apply. Journal clubs included psychiatry, neuroradiology, neurosurgery, neurology, and neuroscience. Following the last journal club meeting, a questionnaire created by the society’s board was distributed to the participants. SPSS Statistics (version 26) was used for statistical analysis. Results Since March 15, 2021, synchronous online journal club meetings have been held every 2 weeks on a weekday using Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom. Meetings of each journal club lasted approximately 1 hour on average. Interstudent interaction across multiple institutions was achieved since a total of 45 students from 11 different universities attended the meetings on a regular basis. Students on the society’s board served as academic mentors for the clubs. The clubs received excellent feedback from participants, with an overall contentment score of 4.32 out of 5. Conclusions By establishing these clubs, we have created a venue for academic discussions, which helps to reduce the negative impact of the pandemic on education. In addition, we believe it greatly aided students in staying in touch with their peers, thereby reducing the sense of isolation. We realize that traditional journal clubs are run by faculty; however, we believe that this experience demonstrated that medical students could run a journal club on their own since the feedback from participants was excellent. Additionally, as a medical student, being a journal club academic mentor is a challenging responsibility; however, having this responsibility significantly improved our academic mentors’ leadership abilities.

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“…Case study: Club initiatives Ozkara et al (2022) studied the Cerrahpasa Neuroscience Society Journal Clubs, a group of entirely student-run online journal clubs at Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, which were founded during spring 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to enhance medical student education, allow participation in academic discussions, and address social isolation, all of which was affected as the professor were recruited as frontline workers.…”

Preliminary Evaluation of a Web-Based International Journal Club for Ketamine in Psychiatric Disorders: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

“…The number of attendees varied depending on perhaps both the speaker and topics presented, with different speakers and topics drawing different audience sizes, and thus, the delivery of live and recorded invitations to the surveys varied. To increase future participation in surveys, issuing a journal club participation certificate could be considered, as it resulted in a 100% response rate by a recent student-run, web-based journal club initiative in Turkey [15].…”

Interactive Journal Club: A Learning Method to Enhance Collaboration and Participation among Medical Students

“…9,10 Across other teaching institutions, students have entertained the possibility of conducting student-run online journal clubs, with students serving as moderators or academic mentors. 13 Belfi et al and Mark et al showed that a student-centered approach effectively achieved the goal of actively engaging learners to participate in discussions to help hone critical thinking skills and stimulate an engaging platform for discussion. 9,10 Due to the success of TJCs, various medical education institutions have attempted to implement TJC iterations, enabling more active participation among students to better achieve learning outcomes.…”