Lifelong learning begins the first day a student pharmacist steps into a classroom. Even at this early stage of their training, pharmacists discover the unsettling reality that the medical literature is fraught with contradictory reports regarding best medical practices.
Epidemiologists have identified the root cause of this confusion as a failure to distinguish causal effects from statistically derived associations (recall the popular aphorism ‘correlation does not prove causation’). Common statistical metrics such as odds ratios, 95% confidence intervals and p-values must be recognized for what they are – measures of association that have a causal interpretation only under very specific circumstances. This course is about those circumstances.
This elective will provide an update on advanced methods for designing and evaluating the medical literature. The instructor will argue:
- Traditionally methods for critiquing the medical literature are inadequate and unnecessarily complicated.
- Advanced methods focus on expert knowledge rather than statistical prowess.
- Advanced methods represent a significant ‘mind shift’ from the traditional view of judging the validity of a research endeavor.
- Instructor: John Inciardi
- Instructor: Sharon Youmans