Journal Clubs: Leading a Journal Club

Guidance for participating in this activity, from how to find articles to discuss to how to lead a journal club.

Preparing Your Presentation

If your journal club is a requirement for a clinical rotation, your preceptor will give you guidelines about what s/he expects when you are the presenter. Groups that meet in other settings will have guidelines that they agreed on when the club was formed. Generally, the content consists of similar steps:

  • Introduce yourself, explain why you chose the particular paper and how it related to your interests
  • Summarize the paper briefly
  • Critique, question, react and lead discussion with other members
  • Conclude

Other Resources and Useful Sites

Journal Club Presentations from the College of Sciences at San Diego State University

Journal club presentation tips from the University of Florida, College of Medicine

Tips for a good delivery from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In this YouTube video two medical students present a sample journal club on a therapy article

Articles on Presenting a Journal Club

The library has electronic access to these articles. Simply copy and paste the article and author into the noted database and you will see a link to the article.

Baird JS. Journal clubs: what not to do. Acad Med. 2012;87(3):257. PubMed

Schwartz MD, Dowell D, Aperi J, Kalet A. Improving journal club presentations,or, I can present that paper in under 10 minutes. ACP J Club. 2007 Jul-Aug;147(1):A8-9. PubMed