To highlight new findings.

To teach practitioners how to search for interesting articles representing the best evidence to inform clinical practice.

To encourage practitioners to read and appraise publications critically and give them the ability to do so.

To encourage practitioners to do applied clinical research and to show them how.

To improve debating skills, demonstrate leadership skills, and aid peer mentorship.

The members of the club should on the whole have shared or complementary interests, including statisticians, but do not discourage multidisciplinarity, if available; involve everyone, from students down to professors.

Run the club regularly at the same time on the same day of the week, so that it becomes a fixture.

Have at least one designated skilled leader who regularly participates in the club.

Ideally, make attendance mandatory and keep a record.

Ensure that the meetings start and end on time.

Encourage communality; this could be done, for example, by asking everyone at the start of each meeting to give their name and a piece of information about themselves (eg, a movie they have recently seen).

Discuss up to three papers from peer-reviewed journals; develop a theme each time; occasionally include books of interest.

Split presentation and discussion times 50/50.

Try to choose papers that you think may influence clinical practice and discuss why.

Disseminate the chosen articles in advance, with questions that might be asked; the leader should bring spare copies to the meeting.

Keep notes and conduct regular audits (eg, yearly); give feedback on later developments; link it to a Xmas quiz.

Welcome guest speakers from time to time to add expert comment.

Provide free enticing refreshments; have a rota for making the tea/coffee.

Use your imagination to make it fun.

Publish your experience.

Adapt these suggestions to suit your own circumstances.

The article should have proceeded from an actual journal club.

The paper discussed need not have been published in EBM.

At the start, give the full reference (Vancouver style) of the article that you have discussed.

The following framework, adapted from that originally suggested by Riegelman8 may be useful: aims, methods, results, interpretation, implications for practice, and further research.

Say what the purpose of the study was.

Summarise the important points in the article, paying particular attention to the methods that were used.

Briefly describe the main results.

Highlight the strengths and weaknesses; how could the study have been improved? did the authors achieve what they set out to achieve?

Describe the implications of the results and whether you think they may or may not influence practice beneficially or adversely.

If relevant, say what further research might be carried out.