Vignesh Kumar Chandiraseharan

The Clinical Epidemiology Unit with the Prof. BV Moses Centre for Evidence-Informed Healthcare and Health Policy (BVMC) and BRTC conducted a Short Course in Epidemiology between 16/12/2018 and 15/2/2019. The course was open to all students and faculty. It consisted of two parts, Learning critical appraisal and completing the NIH Clinical Research Course.

For the critical appraisal, final year general medicine post-graduates posted in four batches presented critical appraisal of various study designs moderated by CEU faculty consisting of Dr. J.P. Muliyil, Dr. Prathap Tharyan, Dr. Abraham Peedicayil, Dr. Sathish Kumar , Dr Vignesh Kumar Chandiraseharan and Dr. Thambu David. The study designs discussed included Randomised Controlled Trials, Case control , Cohort , Diagnostic , Systematic review, Guidelines, Decision analysis, Health economic study, Differential diagnosis, Clinical manifestations, Screening test and Qualitative study. These were modelled on the McMaster University, Evidence based clinical practise workshops with permission. The presentations and discussions were well attended and appreciated.

All participants also completed the NIH “Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Clinical Research”. This is based on online classes and a test score of 70% on completion. The successful participants were Dr.Anjely Pulparampil Sebastian, Dr.Anusha Swaminathan, Dr.Rachana Shenoy, Dr.Nalini Sarah Newbigging, Dr.Jemin Webster, Dr.Jacob Johnson, Dr.Amita Jacob, Dr.Fibi Ninan, Dr.Jasper Rathinam, Dr.Anil Mathew Philip, Dr.John Titus George, Dr.Kevin John, Dr.Asha Mathai, Dr.Anna Paul and Dr.Vijay Alexander. We hope that these workshops will improve the quality of journal appraisal and thereby impact clinical ,laboratory and policy decision making .

The presentations and the articles are available in the links provided below.

Randomized controlled trial

Systematic review and Metaanalysis

Diagnostic test

Clinical manifestations

Differential diagnosis