EBMtalks - Level 1 Lectures (Pre-recorded)

EBMtalks is the first in a 4 level program designed to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for the principles of evidence-based medicine and healthcare practice. Each level will build upon the last to help you develop confidence in reading, understanding and critically appraising healthcare research .

This level in core foundations will introduce you to the history and philosophy of science and evidence-based practice. You will learn about the different types of observational and clinical research to appreciate their usefulness - and their limitations.

The language of research can be learnt and fluency can be achieved. This course will help you to learn how to search for and find research online, how to identify a variety of common study models and discover how each has been designed, when they are appropriate to be used, what we can and cannot infer from each study type, what the common errors and pitfalls are and deepen your understanding of confounders.

A key aim for the course is to introduce the concept of epidemiology and how it is relevant to understanding of health and disease. You will learn about the gold standard of randomised controlled trials where we will explore the fascinating world of placebo and nocebo effects and understand the psychological, social and biological underpinnings of their effects.

You will also be introduced to what are arguably the most important forms of evidence: systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

The core foundation level course will introduce research using a non-mathematical approach however you will learn some of the basics about several of the types of statistical models used to interpret healthcare research and how to make sense of the numbers in simple, practical ways to help you understand the outcomes of studies. You will also be able to appreciate the different types of statistical models used for specific types of research and interpret visual represenations of some of these.

This course is ideal for you if you are a healthcare practitioner or student wanting to refresh or deepen your understanding of evidence-based practice, especially from more of a nutrition perspective. Whether you want to find the best quality evidence to support your patients or develop your understanding about an area of interest at a deeper level, making friends with research is essential. If you are a nutrition student and you are struggling with research concepts or want to further develop your skills to help you prepare for written assignments, this course is great for you.

If you are neither a healthcare student nor practitioner but are generally interested in learning how to read healthcare research and improve your understanding of evidence-based medicine and healthcare science, to improve your critical thinking skills in a world of nutrition guru's, fad diets and fake news, this course could be a great introduction for you. 

This is not a nutrition course and so you will learn nothing new about nutrition itself, though you will learn how to find information about nutrition or any healthcare related topic independently. The course will assume no prior level of knowledge of research methods, statistics or science, but will be aimed at university level. It will also be a pre-requisite to more advanced levels of the EBMtalks which will be offered in the future.

The core-foundations course will run over 10x 2.5 hour pre-recorded sessions, available for live-streaming only. These are not available for download. The lectures will be released at the start of the EBMplay level 1 course and will follow the process. In some instances 2 lectures might be released in one week but typically, only one lecture will be released for streaming per week. The videos can be streamed as many times as desired to make the concepts easier to refresh following the workshops. 

It is not required to attend the EBMplay course too, though it is encouraged for maximal benefit. Detailed slides will be provided for each session. These are copyrighted and cannot be shared with anyone not attending the course.

The EBMtalks core foundations level course can only be purchased as a whole. The 10 sessions can be used for 25 hours CPD and costs £300.

The synopsis for each day is as follows:

Day 1: History and philosophy of science and evidence-based medicine.

Day 2: Finding research: databases, search engines, optimising search terms, storing and collating research. Formulating research questions. Private versus open access research and their strengths and limitations. Introduction to types of evidence and the hierarchy of evidence.

Day 3: Introduction to forms of bias in research including cognitive bias. Introduction to critical thinking. Introduction to placebo and nocebo.

Day 4: Introduction to epidemiology - understanding its relevance to nutrition, controversies and issues. Introduction to statistical concepts in epidemiology.

Day 5: Cohort studies - types of cohort studies, research uses of these studies, common statistical models employed. Key principles in critical appraisal for cohort studies.

Day 6: Case-control studies - types of design approaches, the questions these studies aim to address and their limitations. Key statstical models used and critical appraisal considerations.

Day 7: Cross-sectional and ecological studies - understanding their uses in practice, how to critically appraise them and the kinds of statistical models used.

Day 8: Case studies and Case series, animal and in-vitro evidence, in-silico research and making sense of genetic studies.

Day 9: Interventional studies - Randomised and non-randomised controlled trials, types of control models, the sociology and psychobiology of placebo and nocebo effects. Types of statistical models used. Key principles in critical research.

Day 10: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses - understanding the overlap and differences in these studies, their design, their limitations and key statistical models and visual representations of pooled data.