This paper is from Session 1A: Evidence-based medicine
which comes under Topic 1: Data and context in statistics education: towards an evidence-based society
(Monday 12th, 16:30-18:00)
Drip-feed education: statistics notes in the British Medical Journal
Presenter
Co-author
Abstract
Evidence-based medicine depends on decision makers, such as clinicians, being able to understand evidence. Statistical understanding is essential for this. Although most clinicians include some statistics in their training, it is often forgotten or confused by the time they want to apply it in practice. Statistics Notes, published in the British Medical Journal, help to overcome this. In this paper we discuss how we came to write these short pieces, what they are like, and how they have been received and cited. We discuss the value of such series, both to medicine and to ourselves, and how the process is repeated in other journals. We recommend that similar series be undertaken in journals in other fields and suggest that laboratory research using animals would be a good focus for other authors to try.
