Contemporary trends in the level of evidence in general thoracic surgery clinical research

Choe, Se-In; Ben-Avi, Ronny; Begum, Housne; Pearce, Kendra; Mehta, Meera; Agzarian, John; Finley, Christian; Hanna, Waël C.; Farrokhyar, Forough; Shargall, Yaron

doi:10.1093/ejcts/ezab460

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

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“…The cornerstone in this debate will probably be the input of trainees since one in seven respondents in this questionnaire was a trainee and the webinars are, unlike other ESTS educational resources, not specifically designed for trainees [27]. Anyhow, the use of modern technology should always be evaluated in a scientific context [28, 29], but optimizing social media dissemination and facilitating access to the recorded videos may already further enhance the global audience of the current webinars.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Survey Evaluation of Three Years of European Society of Thoracic Surgeons Educational Webinars as Part of The E‐learning Platform

et al. 2022

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Background E-learning has become an important tool in surgical education in the last decade. The European Society of Thoracic Surgeons launched its e-learning platform in 2013 and started its educational webinars series in 2018. The aim of this paper is to discuss the introduction, evolution and impact of the educational webinars within this e-learning platform. Methods Twenty-four English spoken webinars discussing different subdomains in general thoracic surgery (21 expert talks, 2 pro-con debates and 1 multidisciplinary case discussion) were analyzed. An online questionnaire on timing, quality and technical aspects of the webinars was sent to 3012 registrants. Results The webinars reached 3128 unique registrants from 76 countries worldwide. The mean number of registrants was 355 with 171 live attendees (48%) and 155 replay watchers (36%). Hundred and twenty-six attendees (13.1% of people who registered for at least 4 webinars) completed the questionnaire. Timing and duration of the webinars were rated “very good” to “excellent” in 78%, and the quality of the webinar content and the expertise of the webinar presenters were rated “very good” to “excellent” in 88% and 90%, respectively. The impact on knowledge and clinical practice was scored with a weighted average of 7.27 out of 10 and 6.79 out of 10, respectively. Conclusions The ESTS educational webinars were effective in delivering up-to-date knowledge to almost half of the countries around the globe. The impact of these events on knowledge and clinical practice were rated high. New e-learning tools should be added to the surgical educational curriculum.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Survey Evaluation of Three Years of European Society of Thoracic Surgeons Educational Webinars as Part of The E‐learning Platform

et al. 2022

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Level of evidence in high impact surgical literature: the way forward

ElHawary,

Kaleeny,

ElSewify

et al. 2024

Updates Surg

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Evidence-based medicine stipulates that clinical decision-making should revolve around scientific evidence. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the methodological quality of surgical research recently published in JAMA Surgery, International Journal of Surgery, and British Journal of Surgery, the three surgical journals with the highest impact factor. An electronic search of the PUBMED database was performed to retrieve all articles published in the JAMA Surgery, International Journal of Surgery, and British Journal of Surgery in the year 2022. Three authors independently reviewed all retrieved articles and methodological designs of the publications were analyzed and rated using a modification of the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Levels of Evidence (Oxford Levels of Evidence scale). The initial search identified 1236 articles of which 809 were excluded after title and abstract screening. The remaining 427 underwent full text/methods read, of which 164 did not meet the inclusion/exclusion criteria. A total of 273 studies were included in the analysis. The average level of evidence was 2.5 ± 0.8 across all studies assessed. The majority of study designs were comprised of retrospective cohorts (n = 119), prospective cohorts (n = 47), systematic reviews of non RCTs (n = 39), and RCTs (n = 37). There was no significant difference in the average level of evidence between the top three journals (p = 0.50). Most clinical studies in the highest impact factor surgical journals are of level III evidence, consistent with earlier literature. However, our analysis demonstrates a relatively higher percentage of LOE I and II compared to what was previously published in the literature.

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