1 teaching a statistical program in emergency medicine research rotations: command- driven or...
Post on 20-Dec-2015
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Teaching a statistical program in emergency medicine
research rotations: Command-driven or click-driven?
Muhammad Waseem, MD
Research Director
Emergency Medicine
Lincoln Medical & Mental Health Center
Bronx, New York
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Background
• Stata is a command-driven program
• It is a general-purpose statistical software package used by people of different backgrounds and professional disciplines
• Most Stata users are non-physicians
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Background
• No matter which book you choose or which course you attend….
• Since Stata is used by people in many fields, most training programs offered are geared toward programmers and non-physicians
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Background
• Although Stata has simple commands, these may be difficult for non-programmers to use
• Generally, physicians are familiar with “clicking on” rather than writing commands
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Background
• Research is an important part of curriculum of emergency medicine residency training
• A Research Project is necessary for graduation of EM residents
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Background
• ACGME fully accredited 3 year Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program
• 33 EM residents (11 / year)
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EM Research Rotation
• Formulating a research question
• Basic research design
• Protocol writing and submission to IRB
• Data Collection
• Basic statistical concepts
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Objectives
• Does introduction of a Statistical program (such as Stata) improve the accuracy of data recording and data entry?
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Methods
• Design: Observational
• Setting: Emergency Department of an Urban Teaching Hospital
• Participants: Emergency Medicine Residents
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Methods
• Emergency Medicine Stata Manual describing basic operation of Stata created with version 10
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Methods
• This manual was developed keeping in mind the needs of in-training Emergency Medicine Residents
• EM residents may have some basic knowledge of statistics but no knowledge of Stata– Emphasis on data entry and data import
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Methods
• Teaches EM residents the essential skills for successful data entry and data import to Stata
• Purpose is to reduce the number of incorrect entries and make the data set usable to Stata
• Hands-on experience using Stata
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Methods
• Strengths– Tailored to the needs of a specific audience
(EM residents)
– Discusses only simple and basic operation of Stata
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Methods
• Weaknesses– Tailored to the needs of a specific rotation
(EM residents research elective)
– Does not teach residents detailed statistical analysis
– Does not discuss programming
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Methods
• Keep it simple
• Utilize pull-down menus (rather than commands)– No discussion on commands
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Methods
• Basic commands with pull-down menus
Describe and summarize data
• Data input and output
Data Import
Saving files
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Conclusions
• Basic operation of Stata can be learned quickly by EM residents
• Teaching Stata to the EM residents expanded their research related knowledge
• Providing introduction of Stata prior to data entry improve accuracy of data recording and facilitates data analysis
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Implications
• It is necessary to develop a training program that addresses the needs of physicians