Beyond the Clinic

Section I: "Me, myself, I": Preparation of CV: Interview Skills; Assessment/Appraisal; Section II: "Clinical Research: First Steps": Study Prerequisites: Funding issues; The literature search; The ethics application; Study Requisites: Capturing information; data recording; questionnaires; data storage; maintenance of confidentiality; patient consent form; patient information; Section III: "Clinical Research: Second Steps": Descriptive Statistics; Means, dispersion measures, correlation, graphs; Inferential Statistics; Hypothesis tests, power; types of data; sample size; confidence intervals; Basic Epidemiology; Health Economics; Cost effectiveness; Section IV: "Assessing and Assessment": Critical Appraisal; Reading the journals; Clinical Audit; Section V: "The Written Word": The Absolute Basics; Elementary English grammar; common 'howlers'; English as a foreign language; US English spelling and usage; The Meeting Abstract; Structured abstract only, what to avoid; what to include; Writing for Journals; Authorship; which journal? impact factors; the editorial process; tips for dealing with editors and editorial staff; proofs and proof reading; The Research Letter and Case History; Purpose; what to avoid; what to include; Academic Correspondence; Purpose; what to avoid; what to include; The Journal Article; The introduction; the methods; the results; the discussion; the conclusion; the references; tables; figures; acknowledgements; The Poster; Not just the written word; principles of graphic design; talking about your poster; handouts; Section VI: "The Spoken Word": Presentation Skills; Speech and mannerism; the audience; microphones, lecterns and lights; Lecturing skills; Timing, involving the audience, questions and answers, handouts and notes; Use of Audiovisual Aids; The flip chart; the overhead projector and transparencies; slide projection; videos; laptop presentations; laser pointers; Section VII: "Miscellania": Appendices; Useful addresses; contacts; websites; further reading, proof reading marks