INTRODUCTION TO TRRM

Teaching Registrars Research Methods

Dr. Jim teWaterNaude
UCT Department of Public Health

Note: You may see the Power Point presentation used at the lecture.

Aims of this course:

The aims of this course can be listed as follows:

To enable registrars to acquire skills for designing clinical research.
To enable registrars to produce their own research suitable for an MMed.
To enable registrars to read articles critically, especially the methods section.
To increase the research output of Health Sciences.

How to get busy registrars to complete this course:

Registrars have a considerable work-load. So, how can this course be structured so that they will have time to complete it? The following are the solutions to this problem:

Departmental & Faculty commitment.
Mentor, research question, literature review.
User-friendly text: Designing Clinical Research.
Weekly written feedback from convenor.
Set up small groups, or pairing up.
Valuable product - the 5-page protocol.
Promise of an MMed.

Note from GRD: I think we should expand on the above.

Designing Clinical Research (content of a UCSF course):

Research question and background.
Study designs and causal inference.
Subjects and variables.
Hypotheses and sample size.
Create a 5-page protocol.

(UCSF: University of California at San Francisco. The UCT course is very similar ….)

Content of this 11 lecture UCT course (See the timetable):

Research question (1) & Literature review (2).
Study design (3).
Population, sampling, measurement (4 & 5).
Evidence Based Medicine (6 & 7)
Hypotheses and sample size (8 – 10).
Ethics (11).

Create a 5-page protocol.

Fridays are course days:

Dr te Water Naude (course convenor) will be available on Fridays for the purposes of the course.
Office on 1st floor, UCT Lung Institute.
Email is mailto:jim@cormack.uct.ac.za.

The course is intended to be paperless: Registration is by email – send an email to mailto:jim@cormack.uct.ac.za. An E-list will be set up - replies to the list go centrally o nl- feedback may be individual or to the group. Further, a Friday digest is intended.

A CD will containing all the course material will be provided early in 2006.