1 "A History Lesson" To provide a historical perspective on the development of original medical literature as we know it today. bull; History of first medical papers bull; History of The Lancet bull; How and why the medical literature has grown 2 "Searching for the Right Stuff" To provide skills in searching electronic databases and other resources for the best available evidence. bull; Organization of Medline bull; Searching Medline bull; Accessing and searching evidence-based medicine databases bull; Searching the Internet for the best available evidence 3 "Anatomy of a Research Article" To provide an overview of the structure of most original medical research articles and to describe the process through which articles are published bull; Basic structure of research articles and the purpose of each component bull; Principles of peer review, editorial freedom and author confidentiality bull; Types of research articles and journals Three 4 A Statistics Primer To provide an overview of essential descriptive & comparative statistics for practicing physicians bull; Basic, descriptive statistics bull; Normal and other distributions bull; Samples & populations bull; Principles of comparative statistics bull; Principles underlying all tests of significance 5 Diagnostic Reasoning To provide an overview of how doctors think about diagnosis, how diagnostic tests are developed and evaluated, and how studies about diagnostic tests should be evaluated bull; Psychology of medical diagnosis bull; Developing and assessing a new diagnostic test bull; Tools for evaluating diagnostic tests (sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood ratios, Bayes Theorem, ROC curves) 6 Studying Therapies To provide an overview of how new therapies are evaluated (including different research designs and summary and analysis of results) bull; Elements of "sound" clinical questions bull; Research designs used to evaluate new therapies (including Bayesian designs) bull; Analysis of results of new therapies (p values, confidence intervals, etc.) 7 Risk & Prognosis To provide an overview of how doctors and patients think about risk and prognosis and how risk and prognosis are systematically evaluated bull; Measures of risk bull; Study designs used to assess risk bull; Patient preferences with respect to risk bull; Measures of prognosis (i.e. survival curves, etc.) 8 Systematic Reviews To provide an overview of the principal characteristics and usefulness of qualitative and quantitative (meta-analyses) systematic reviews. bull; Definitions of qualitative & quantitative systematic reviews bull; The Cochrane Collaboration bull; Principles of meta-analyses bull; Interpretation of systematic reviews 9 Decision Analysis To provide a basic overview of the design and interpretation of decision analyses bull; Definition and purpose of decision analysis bull; Interpretation of decision analyses 10 Clinical Practice Guidelines To provide an overview of the purpose, development and use of clinical practice guidelines bull; Definition and purpose of clinical practice guidelines bull; Steps in development of "sound" clinical practice guidelines bull; Use of guidelines to aid in patient care decisions 11 Qualitative Research To provide an overview of qualitative methods to address questions of importance to physicians and patients bull; Definition of qualitative research bull; Summary of qualitative research methods bull; How to use qualitative research in patient care decisions Appendix bull; Answers to problems bull; Glossary of terms Estimate of total number of pages excluding index: 220.