Special Study Modules (SSM)

CEBM Academic Lead(s)

Dr David Nunan 

Overview

The main focus of Year 6 is on the consolidation of skills in care and management and preparation for entry to postgraduate training. The first six months of the year include senior rotations in medicine and surgery in Oxford and in district general hospitals and student-selected options in clinical specialities. It is possible to pursue interests ranging from philosophy, theology or ethics to mathematics, evidence-based medicine or global health. Students undertake summative assessments in January and March or May of the final year. In the final six months, all students complete a Preparation for Practice module (comprising a taught course) and a student assistantship attachment. The remainder of this period is allocated for student-selected components, including special study modules and a ten-week elective period. During this period, students must finalise their portfolio of achievement. Many students use this period for clinical experience abroad.

Twelve weeks spread throughout the final year are devoted to student selected clinical options and special study modules. This final year SSM is for students who are interested in evidence-based medicine. Students will spend three weeks working in the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford. Over the course of the SSM there will be tutorials which will cover the areas of the objectives below, in order to gain the methodological tools needed to undertake an evidence synthesis project (rapid review, systematic review or a meta-research study) in an area of evidence-based healthcare and/or research methods. The tutorials will be delivered by academics from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences who are all experienced teachers of EBM, as well as librarians from the Knowledge Centre. Each student will be assigned a supervisor for the duration of the SSM who will provide guidance on conducting the review as well as educational support.

OBJECTIVES

• To develop EBM skills in evidence synthesis
• To learn the methods of searching for evidence and to undertake a literature search in an area relevant to evidence based healthcare
• To learn the methods of critical appraisal of primary reports
• To become familiar with the statistical methods used to conduct meta-analysis
• To gain a better understanding of how evidence syntheses are used in clinical practice

OUTPUT

To write up a personally undertaken an evidence synthesis project in an area of evidence-based healthcare or research methods, which could potentially be submitted for publication. Candidates will be provided with specific topics for their project at the start of the attachment. This could include a group project.

ASSESSMENT

To pass this SSM, students must:

• Attend all the teaching/educational sessions
• Submit a protocol and blog of high enough standard which will be assessed by the SSM supervisor.

Project examples

• How effective are ‘age’ tools at changing patient behaviour? A rapid review
• Do journals really care about bias and reporting in clinical trials
• Adherence in leading medical journals to the CONSORT 2010 statement for reporting of binary outcomes in randomised controlled trials: cross-sectional analysis
• Open science and conflict of interest policies of medical and health sciences journals before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A repeat cross-sectional study: Open science policies of medical journals
• Quality of reporting of adherence to medicines in published clinical trials
• The quality, reliability and applicability of evidence for exercise therapy in non-specific chronic low back pain: an overview of network meta-analyses
• Covid-19 retractions
• IN MICE study
• Sanitation: Positive impact based on low-quality evidence with moderate to high resource implications  
• Exposures in housing: Mild negative impact based on uncertain evidence with uncertain resource implications
  

Healthy Cities Toolkit

Sanitation: Significant positive impact based on low-quality evidence with uncertain resource implications

Exposure to Air Pollution: Strong negative impact based on uncertain evidence and uncertain resource implications

Exposures in housing: Mild negative impact based on uncertain evidence with uncertain resource implications