Editorial Comment 6/9/2020: The People’s Universal Journal Club (UJC)

Editorial Comment:    The People’s Universal Journal Club (UJC)

PROPOSAL: For some years, Dr. Athanasiou, and before him, Dr. Miotto and I have tried to find a means by which to hold a journal club in addiction medicine that would span the continent. With over 50 fellowships in addiction medicine and a like number of addiction psychiatry fellowships, the call to share resources is less an opportunity than an obligation. The springboard for a universal journal club would in fact be this very weekly e-journal. It has the merit of conveying an overview of the literature in a condensed structure. And while the conventional journal club format involves analyzing an article (or two) from cover to cover, the value of such analysis tends to favor teaching research methodology and critical reading skills.

ADVANTAGES: What the conventional journal club is less efficient in doing is providing a broad range of what is useful, what has arrived on the scene after the type is set on the latest textbook galleys, and what is under scrutiny in the public press.  Providing topics for a vigorous discussion, the ASAM Weekly advances 6-8 abstracts per week and an editorial, easily 60-90 minutes even when chewing cold tuna sandwiches.

BENEFITS:  Meanwhile, in recent decades, examinees are held more and more to responsibility for recent research and treatment reports.   In a field once teased for the scarcity of substantive, “real science” material, the practitioners are finding themselves drowned in a flood of new knowledge.

LOGISTICS: The logistics are manageable.  If that is one thing that the pandemic’s forced fallback on web-enabled colloquy has taught us, it’s that we are not so limited by airline schedules nor the availability of local talent.   Two or more fellowships would join in reviewing and re-abstracting the written material, which the ASAM staff presently select by algorithm. The participating fellows will still be obliged to develop critical reading skills, in creating the summaries; but we will aid, and review, and at the end of it the fellows will find themselves with Editorial Board service acknowledgment.  For the meeting itself, available platforms, Zoom or WebEx or other, will serve.  The foremost logistical challenge would be finding a common day or time.  Happily, we are used to early mornings in Hawaii; and my experience of the East Coast culture is that its participants are strangely proud of how late at night they will work.  (It’s just 6 time zones, and Nick, lucky guy, benefits by his fellowship being in California.  Arguably a different world, but still connected.)

REQUEST:  So, here’s my pitch to those readers who are allied with or are program directors of addiction (medicine or psychiatry) fellowships: If you have any interest in a monthly, or even other-scheduled) Addiction Journal Club that is collaborative; provides shared expertise; costs nothing; and will knock the socks off the RRC site surveyors, then send me an email via Ms. Deedee Camara, dcamara@asam.org .  We’ll form a panel, discuss options, talk over whether we want to qualify for both ADM & ADP MOC, and take a run at it.

- William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

[Postscript:  Many readers have been sending short reports and links, as well as event notices.  We are happy to receive them, but still haven’t worked out how to best manage and prioritize them.  The format of ASAMW is lean. Please have patience while we work on improved models, in the next half-year, which may include podcasts and letters. – WFH3]