Well, yesterday was much better. But on to other things… Ah, yes. Journal Club.
For people not in my department (I have no idea how prevalent these things are), they work like this: One student picks a paper not in his/her specific field, but within the purvey of biochemistry. Next, this student reads said paper and learns all the ins and outs of it. Thus, attempting to become a pseudo-expert of it within two or three weeks (normal prep time). When the day of their presentation occurs, they stand up in front of the entire department (mandatory for students and most faculty member show up) and present a prepared presentation. During this time, he/she is interrupted frequently to clarify and provide background on this paper and/or to defend the work of the authors (at the very least he/she should be able to justify its publication in the Journal). All students must present at this Journal Club once per academic year. One can “choose” (read: strong-armed) to join an additional journal club that’s within one’s specific field.
These things are all well and good, but I never can prepare for them properly. The idea that I’m supposed to add two extra papers to my ever-growing stack of things to read, and bump these papers to the top of my to-read list, is a bit… presumptuous. I barely have enough time to do my own reading (especially now… did everyone wait to publish in 2008?), let alone extra reading that is not in my field. Plus, if the student is going to present the paper to me, do I really need to read it myself? (I know the answer to that, consider it rhetorical.)
Still, I have this sneaking suspicion that if I want to do this (that is be a scientist in an academic setting) for the rest of my life, I really should act like it and read those bloody papers.
Right?
My department is going through an overhaul of our JC, and it’s going to now work something like yours…except that we’re now allowed to (as opposed to before) present a paper more closely related to what we work on. (This is because I’m in a department where people work on very, very different things.)
Anyway, the point is that we changed the format because people don’t read the paper and this format accommodates that. And your suspicion is wrong, I’d say. If you’re going to be a scientist in an academic setting, you’re going to need to learn how to look over the paper(s) quickly and know most of what they did. And a plus if you can convince your students that you know everything about it. (but that might have been said with a little bitter sarcasm…)
Wow- different from Journal Club at my postgrad school. One of the profs would choose an article and we’d read it, dissect the scientific method, and then meet in a group. We’d discuss the elements, how this study would impact our work, whether it was considered relevant to prior work and in what ways…I was nervous the first time, but my prof made it a wholly enjoyable afternoon each time. My last rotation was internal med, and we had different profs choose the articles. One week’s paper was on a study of an antibiotic that attacked a particular gene sequence, and I did some in-depth research on PubMed on
the genetics of bacteria, which I never would have done on my own. I enjoyed that session in particular.
I guess it depends on how it’s conducted, and what they expect us to get out of it. I didn’t think I’d like JC but it became my favourite part of the training (next to case presentations).
I wish you had the same pleasant experience.
My Advisor always says, “It gets easier with practice.” But even if I could read a paper in 10-20 minutes (and be able to dissect it from there), how much time would all this add up to?
I would do the reading and presenting on my week (because it sounds mandatory) but for the other weeks I’d read the abstract only.
Interesting idea, but the whole concept of defending a paper that is not within one’s own field seems a bit scary.
Ah, the ever-growing stack of papers to read. Why can’t they convert them into audio-papers that I can listen to while driving to work? 🙂
What a great idea, MH! 😀