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Gorf's avatar

In my experience medical students shouldn't be asked to write papers until they are very proficient in critically appraising those already written.

Although given their professors it's often unclear who would teach them to do that 😛

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Joshua Oommen's avatar

I have had faculty suggest that it isn't worth the time to teach med students critical appraisal because they won't end up doing it in practice anyway. And us students receive soft expectations to publish research for more competitive specialties. A confusing set of expectations for sure.

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Gorf's avatar

Yes, it's unreasonable.

"Don't learn to evaluate other's claims, nor your own. Just get words on paper and get it in a journal."

Despite my cheeky jab at the faculty, I don't blame them. Critical appraisal isn't a valuable currency. The system doesn't select for those who are congenitally afflicted by the need to do it, and it hasn't for generations of faculty. Those who are teaching now may not have been expected to emphasize it by *their* trainers, and so on.

If I were king for a day....

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Adam Cifu, MD's avatar

Love that. And… ouch.

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Gorf's avatar

Editors here conspicuously excepted :)

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