Background: Journal clubs provide a way to communicate advances in recent literature. In outpatient surgical subspecialties, such as dermatologic surgery, physicians may face challenges in finding or attending meetings pertinent to their practice.
Objective: To assess the utility of a live web-based journal club in dermatologic surgery.
Materials and methods: Monthly 30-minute journal club sessions covering 5 to 6 scholarly articles. Anonymous surveys were used to evaluate the utility and self-reported learning associated with each meeting.
Results: From December 2012 to February 2015, 117 articles were reviewed. Survey data were acquired monthly, apart from 5 months of missing data. On average, the survey response rate was 37% (range: 7%-82%), with an average of 17 participants per monthly session (range: 9-25). The mean monthly usefulness score was 83.7 (101-point scale), with participants scoring their likelihood of returning in the future as 96.2 (0 = not likely, 100 = extremely likely). At each session, a mean of 68% of participants felt that at least one article would change their practice of medicine.
Conclusion: A monthly online and telephonic journal club may be a practical and effective way to inform dermatologic surgeons of new developments in high impact literature and may influence improvements in individual practice.