This is the second of our academic sessions where we built upon the foundations discussed in our first session to cover how to approach critical appraisal in depth with worked examples
Session 6: Academic Station 2 - Critical Appraisal
Summary
This session is ideal for medical professionals looking for an online teaching session on the interview process for the SFP Programme. Learn more about the different types of interview stations, what to expect and how to prepare. Get tips on how to do a critical appraisal of a paper, and get a work example. Plus, gain insight into the general process, the interview structure, the role of the layperson in interviews, and the important dates to keep an eye on. Don't miss out!
Description
Learning objectives
Learning Objectives
- Explain what a critical appraisal of a research paper is and the 9 steps involved.
- Identify key information in the title, authorship, date, journal, abstract, purpose and outcome of a research paper.
- Identify the relevance of assessing a paper's impact factor and journal reputation.
- Describe the structure of the National SFP Research Track interview.
- Identify and discuss the APPRAISE method of critical appraisal of research papers.
Related content
Similar communities
Similar events and on demand videos
Computer generated transcript
Warning!
The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.
Hi guys. Can you hear Amir? I think you're on mute as well. All right. Ok. No worries. It's fine. We'll just restart. I mean, I've kind of spilled a lot. Sorry about that. Guys had a bit of technical issues. Um Kylie. Um one second. Sorry. One sec. Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm, I'm one of the um S FP currently on the Oxford Research. Um S FP. Um Just hold on a second. We're just trying to sort out some uh technical issues with these flights and then we'll be back to you guys just give us a minute. Yeah, you have to monitor the chart to see if they can see because I can't see the, I can't see the uh chat now. Yeah, that's fine. Sorry guys, I'm so sorry. The screen sharing thing is a bit confusing on this. Um Sorry. So I've literally just spoke the whole time and you guys couldn't even hear me. I couldn't even see the chart. Um So this is who we are. So we're applied to S FP, it's a free National initiative. Um And it's run by S FP. Um you know, foundation doctors um who been through the process um and wear doctors from all across um the UK in different tracks. Um And we sort of provide these like informative webinars and um personalized application support. Um So as you can see, this is like the overview of the series, so we've had two sessions already, interview overview and also the academic station part one. And then this is the academic station part two in which we'll be setting the foundation. So talking about like study design. Um Well, so sign uh No, sorry. Yeah, no, that was part one. Sorry. So we're going to talk about that critical appraisal and then part three is like things like common graphs and other common questions that you can have um can be quite confusing as well tackling the academic station and then the final two stations are the clinical stations. So you, you might get an A to e um type scenario um within your interview, it's quite common um and things like clinical prioritization because as a doctor, you're gonna have to do that a lot. Um So those are really useful state um sessions to, to do. Um So these sessions kind of map along with 2024. Um and we'll also do like a final Q and A as well, you know, when you get your offers as well to help with that process. Uh So just to introduce myself, so I'm uh Amira and I'm doing a research track in the Midlands uh I don't know if Jack, he might be on his way, he might be joining a bit. I don't know. I don't know yet. And then Kylie, I think you introduced yourself, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, great. Ok. So we're just gonna do a little recap of like the interview structure. So, um as I said before, um there's like clinical, um there's a clinical station that you may have or you may not have. It very, really depends on um where you, you've applied to. Um And you know, sometimes they can go rogue, so just be prepared for like any possible situation, but it's quite, you know, your kind of bread and butter medicine. So a to e scenarios and potentially like ethical scenarios as well. Um You know, things like gil competence or um you know, capacity and things like that. So things, these things are quite common um and things that you might come across as an F one. And then you also have your academic station. So critical appraisal, appraisal of an abstract or a paper, data of interpretation ethics. Um And then also like teaching methods or medical education concepts. So I didn't apply to a med one. So I don't really know too much about that. Um And then the personal motivation station, so that's generally kind of similar to your workspace questions. Um Talking about like why you actually want to pursue an academic career where you see yourself in five years time, you know, how you can balance academia with clinical medicine, things like that. Um So it's generally, it, you know, it is a panel interview. Um you have like 23 clinical academic doctors um and you'll probably have about 15 to 30 minutes. I think mine was around about like 20 minutes. Um And then yeah, you book it online. Um So when, when you get offered your interview, you have to book it, so book it like as soon as you possibly can because you, if you want to get the early slot or the slot that you want, sorry, um you know, get there early basically. Um So yeah, do you want to just to add for the panel interview, sometimes you may have a layperson to interview you as well. The layperson wouldn't be asking the question. You'll be sitting at the back and they will be giving you a score as well. So when you're explaining the academic station, it's important that you try and explain it in a way where a layperson would be able to understand. Yeah. So this is just like, I think a list of the dates, I'm sure you, you'll probably all be like aware of these. Um But it's really important to kind of keep an, keep an eye on these dates and it comes around quite soon. I literally, I can't believe it's been like almost a year since I did my interview because it generally like, it feels like it was like yesterday. Um, but it's just important because it does go very, very quickly and before, you know, it, like you'll be hearing about like your interview and then your off, you know, hopefully your offer. Um, so just be kind of on the ball basically. Um, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add Kylie about that just for the London, um, interviews, they only interview about 60 people and they have 30 slots. So if you do get an interview, your chances are actually quite high. Um So I'll just go through the quick, quick analysis of the paper and then I will just go through um a work example then. Um So what is critical appraisal, critical appraisal is basically a process for you to systematically examine a research so that you can um identify its reliability, its value and relevance. In summary, it's basically for you to know what is a good paper and what is not a good paper and whether it's something that you can use to help change your practice. So there are nine simple steps to a critical appraisal. Um First start with the title, look at the journal date, author, abstract the purpose of the study, the methodology results and the conclusion and limitations. I'll go through them in more detail. Um Amir I will monitor the chat at the moment. If you guys have any questions, she'll just interrupt me and uh ask the question then. So with Kaiser, they and also they are all relatively simple things that you can immediately talk about and they all are relevant to a critical appraisal. So title simple as it is read the title. What does the title tell you? Does the title give you any information with journals like New England? They are very direct with their title. It will be something like Ramipril is superior to Verapamil or something like that. And the title basically gives you the answer. Some titles may puns and don't give you much information and you do have to read it and you can mention that in your critical appraisal if your interviewer ask you to critically appraise an abstract. Um Next look for the journal. Um look for check for the reputation of the journal, the impact factor. Um impact factors. Basically how many times um the journal papers in the journals have been cited? Um just in summary of impact factor, the higher the impact factor, the better the journal is um things like the lancets or nature have really high impact factors. And journal wise, you're also trying to look whether it's specific to a field or whether it's a general journal. So New England journal is considered a general journal. They publish most fields of medicine. Whereas specific journals can be things like hematology where they only publish um hematology related research date is very important as well. Um Check to see if it's a reason paper and the reason why you need to know if it's reason or if it's ages ago is because you need to know whether it's relevant for today. A paper published in 1980 is unlikely to be relevant to your clinical practice today. Authorize authorized. If you are very knowledgeable in a particular subject. If you have done a lot of research in a particular topic, you would know names of certain authors. Um If you know the field, it would be good to mention about the author and whether um the author is known in that field, look at the office um accreditation as well. So what titles do they have? Whether they are professor in a particular topic, what degrees they hold and whether their opinions are something that you want to consider as well or whether you would form your own opinion uh from this research uh results moving on to abstract, I would just read an abstract really quickly for about 3 to 5 minutes less than that just to know what's going on. Um So your first read of the abstract should tell you the most important thing. Patient population. So who are they including and who are they excluding? Is it a pediatric population? Is it a geriatric or is it just everyone, are they excluding someone with a particular condition? Um or is everyone included, intervention is basically what they are doing? So, not every study has comparisons, comparisons. Um If it's a descriptive study, it wouldn't have a comparison. But I suspect that in the abstract they'll be giving you will most probably be a randomized controlled trial or a trial with a comparison group. So the comparison group is basically your control group and um you're also looking at outcomes. So outcomes wise, primary outcome is your most important outcome. The primary outcome is the outcome that the um they can form a conclusion on secondary outcomes are hypothesis generating. So if an article has several outcomes, it would be good for you to mention the secondary outcomes. But you should mention that its hypothesis generating and that you cannot form a conclusion from it, rational and objective of the study. So for this just reread the introduction in more detail. Your rationale of the study should be clear in the introduction. If it's not clear in the introduction, it's not a good paper because you don't know what they're looking for. Look, try and find out what the aim of the study is, what the purpose of it and the aim of the study should also tell you the primary outcome of the study. Are they trying to answer any questions or are they just generating a hypothesis? So, I mean, I do wanna go through your work, for example. Yeah, first and foremost, apologies guys, I had to like screenshot this because my word like document stopped working. So I couldn't like copy paste, whatever. Um But basically I just included an example of um AP O. Um I don't know, I, I'm sure you guys, you know, we've already gone through it a bit but, um, you know, if you haven't already like, heard of that, definitely look it up because it's a really useful tool for sort of starting your critical appraisal. Um, but I did this for when I was preparing for my S FP interview. Um So, you know, I don't know if you know much about sort of what the timings and stuff like that, but they generally don't give you much time to like, do your critical appraisal. They'll probably only give you like a few days I think, like, they'll release the paper, like maybe like one or two days before and then you have to kind of go through it and then sort of prepare your critical appraisal if you like. So they don't give you a lot of time. Um So this is um basically a study. So I've just like laid out like the publishing journal, which is the New England Journal of Medicine and the title of the study was dexamethasone in a hospitalized patient with COVID-19. Um And then just looking at the number of authors are boring, sort of like, you know, the, the, the important stuff, but also pretty, pretty dry and then this is like the po sort of mo if you like. So the population, so I just kind of like outlined like the, the total population and I also broke down the number like receiving dexamethasone versus the number receiving usual care. Um And then I also just like in that bit, I also put the data cut off. Um That was more for, you know, just my me to sort of remember, but also it's important to know like when they stopped taking like, you know, collecting data if you like. Um and then I've got like my intervention there, which is dexamethasone and then the comparison is patients receiving usual care. Um It could be that, you know, patients are receiving. So for this one, it was usual care but because you don't really, you don't really not care for patients if they're not receiving dexamethasone. But it could be like if a, if a sample is, you know, receiving aspirin versus a placebo, for example, that could be the comparison. Um And then the outcome. So the primary outcome was 28 day all cause mortality and then your secondary outcomes for this study um were things like time until discharge from hospital um core specific mortality. So like generally like what actually caused them to die essentially. Um And then if they had to have like renal dialysis hemofiltration, um if they had to have um ventilation and if they did, then how long they had it for et cetera. Um And if they had invasive mechanical ventilation, you know, were they able to successfully stop it um and survived 28 days. So I know it seems a bit, it seems like quite a lot, but this is just an example of like a S um AP O model that you can use. And I just, I, I'm a bit boring. I like tables but um it just kind of helps to break it down and also just visualize it as well. Um I don't know Kylie, did you have any kind of strategies when you were doing your appraisal? So the London interview gives you an abstract about 30 minutes. Uh You have about 30 minutes to read the abstract. So I recommend just having a pen and paper next to you writing po just be very clear. Um uh They do ask quite close questions so that you just have everything ready uh to answer and you are allowed to look at your paper when um you present everything. So they just ask you to give a brief summary of the abstract and then there will be lots of close question after I think po is just important to know because it answers most of the things that you need to know about a paper. Yeah, it's about getting the basics right as well. So yeah, that's fine. So, so once you're done with the introduction, the next part is the methodology. Um So I firmly believe a methodology mix or break a study, a study with a lousy methodology is a lousy study and you wouldn't even read it if the methodology is not valid. Um So look at the study, look at their aim, uh identify if it's the right study design. Are they looking at a rare disease? If they are, then a cohort study wouldn't really be appropriate and they probably have to use uh a case control or a cross sectional study. Uh Is it something experiment? So if it's something experimental, it has to go through a randomized controlled trial uh with a trial, always look for ethics and whether they have it approved. Um Are they looking to find the best evidence in that case, they would have to do a systematic review and a meta analysis of that systematic review. Um look at the setting. So two ways you can tell a setting. One is the paper may write it um in the method itself. Um The second way is to check the authors but the, the the difficulty with authors is sometimes uh people just uh they work with international organizations and you can't really tell. So the best part the setting has to be in the methodology section. Um If they do not include the setting, you can't say that it's Generali to your population because the study could be done in America with a totally different healthcare system. So make sure you mention if the setting is mentioned or not, whether the study is a UK based study an international study or just not relevant to our population at all. Patient cohort and patient cohort is part of your po is your um inclusion criteria and your exclusion criteria study arms is your intervention and your control. How many interventions do you have? Some studies have multiple interventions? Some have joint in uh some join their intervention. Whether is it a crossover trial? Um Yeah, just know what your intervention and control is. Um language is more relevant to systematic review. So if it only includes English studies, then that would probably be a bias towards English um English speaking countries. Uh So you can't say it's Generali to everyone, but it will most probably be probably be Generali to your population here in the UK. Um How are they comparing each group? So what um statistical analysis measures are they using? Are they using a cox regression? Are they using a Kaplan Meyer? And uh these are all important because some statistical analysis method allows you to adjust for confounding factors but others like a Kaplan Meyer wouldn't allow you to adjust for confounding. Just so we're clear the only time a Kaplan Meyer is a good um analysis is if it's a randomized controlled trial where confounding factors are controlled for every other study that uses a Kappler meer plot would not be a good um a good um statistical methodology to use because you can't control for any confounding with AK and Meyer. Um outcomes again, your primary and secondary outcome. So I'm just gonna give you a bit more detail why um secondary outcomes can't be used as um I can't answer question and they are hypothesis generating. The more analysis you do. So the more secondary outcomes you have, the more um risk you carry off um doing a type one error. So that is saying that the study is statistically significant when it's not. So more analysis results in more type one errors, which is why secondary analysis are not used to answer questions. They're all hypothesis generating. So all of these are clear, if everything is right, then the methodology is sound if the methodology is. So you can see it is um the study is internally valid results wise, I've mentioned a lot about primary outcomes. So look at the primary outcome, mention the primary outcome and um mention whether it it's by chance uh or whether it's not by chance. So if it's not by chance, um it's statistically significant quote unquote. Uh If they give you figure and leg uh any figures, any legends, any table look at it um identify whether it's a good figure. Um If it's a graph, it's a good graph. So um things like uh Kaplan Mayer, they should write the number of populations um when it goes down or when it goes up. So um other legends clear, basically, if you look at a graph or figure, you should be able to know what's going on without reading the text. If you can understand the results without looking at the text, it means it's a good graph. Um And results by chance, as I mentioned, um chance is basically statistical significance. So if it is less than 0.05 to most people, you say it's not by chance. So type one error happens when um you, you say that something is statistically significant when it's not, um you increase the risk of a type one error by doing more analysis. Type two errors, you say something is not statistically significant when it is type two error generally occurs when there is low power. And with power, you can say that um in general, the lower your study population, the less your power is. So if a study is not statistically significant, you can always mention that there's a possibility of type two error. Um as the study population wasn't big enough. Um The only way you can know whether a study is adequately powered to detect the difference is if they have done a power calculation, a power calculation would never be included in the abstract. So you can always mention that if it is not statistically significant. Lastly, um look at the conclusion and the limitation, I generally don't look at discussion and uh I form my own opinion from the um results unless you are trying to look at the um clinical significance uh to a topic that you are unfamiliar with, um, you would probably read the discussion. But if you are just looking at results, um to, to critically, um analyze and to know whether it's something that you want to consider, I wouldn't read the discussion. I would immediately just form my own opinion from looking at the introduction methodology and results. So when you're summarizing a paper, um back to the, um, interviewers summarize it in 1 to 2 sentences, make sure the layperson with them understands what you're saying. If they're gonna greet you, they should um they would only greet you well, if they understand what you're saying, um Talk about limitations of the paper, um whether they adjust it for any confounding factors, what are your biases? Um Information, you can divide bias into information bias and selection bias. Selection bias is your um recruitment of participants. So if you're only recruiting females, you can say that that's a bias. Um You can basically make a bias out of most things. Information bias comes with um the results. So um if people draw out of the study that would result in information bias as well if they're doing a cross sectional study, um or interviewing someone, people can have recall biases. Um Every study designed have a limitation. Um If you Google study, design limitation and then look at Google images, there would be a table somewhere where you can just go through it, read, read it. Remember what each study's limitations are and mention it when they ask you what the limitations are. Funding is important as well as it can affect the way uh people write their discussions. So just mention if any funding is, and if there's funding, just mention that there's a potential for bias because of funding, lastly, um ensure that the study is ethical mention. If you, if you think it's not ethical mention it. Um If you and if ethical approval is granted, just mention that the study have received adequate ethical approvals. Um And whether your studies a secondary research or primary research. So secondary research are things like systematic reviews and every other research is a primary research. Um Do you wanna take over? Yeah, again, sorry for the um screenshot. Uh My word just stopped working. Um So this is a, an, an example of how I looked at bias in my paper. Um It's a very, very, very simplified version as Kylie was saying, like there can be so many forms of bias. Um And you can literally find bias in, in anything. Um But these are, this is like a, a template that I use. It's called sp so it's selective bias um or selection bias, performance bias. Um And then also um information detection by so performance is bias is basically when you're kind of looking at, I can't really, I don't know, can you phrase it? I don't know if you can phrase it better. Kylie But uh if you, if you read what I said to open label trial, so both the participants and researchers know about who is receiving what intervention. So um essentially knowing like what the outcome potentially could be is or the performance if you like could be. Um so a double blinded trial would reduce performance bias because you're not, you don't really know like, you know who's gonna get a better outcome if you like, I don't know if that's a very, very terrible explanation, but um there's that there's also information bias. Um and then like exclusion or attrition bias. So looking at like the numbers of patients who are like lost to follow up. Um and um then the selective outcome reporting bias as well. So those are a few of them that I sort of looked at when that's spies. Um It's a good thing to start with, but obviously, you know, just, just do a bit of research and maybe look at other forms of bias. You don't wanna get too caught up in it though. Um So just going through like these examples. So um with selection bias, so the way you reduce or minimize that and what I found in the, the study that I was analyzing um was that um you randomize um so by randomizing patients, you would use that to kind of selection bias, you know, you don't select maybe more like in females and males, for example, just to simplify that. And did you have anything you want to say, Kylie about selection bias or anything further? Um, not really. No. So selection bias, all of sudden, you have some far selection bias just because, um, people that choose to participate are of a certain, have a certain characteristics as well. You wouldn't really get like, uh, a man that's um, homebound, um, any study which is why all studies have selection bias? Yeah. Um And then just to go through, so I've already spoke about performance bias, um exclusion or nutrition bias. So basically, um looking at like the the loss to follow up. Um So, you know, patients, so in this study, actually a lot of them, you know, we followed, they were able to follow them up, um like 99.9% of them that's not always realistic. You may get people dropping out for various reasons. Um And then as a result, you know, you you lose or you get that attrition of patients or, or participants or 11 way to overcome um like this sort of bias or any different, like systematic differences is something called the attention to treat analysis. So that is essentially something that there is clinical practice. So in normal clinical practice, not everyone will like end up receiving the full treatment or receiving treatment at all. Um Some people may be lost, et cetera. But what you do is you basically analyze every single person who was randomized even if they got uh opposite or no treatment. Um Essentially. So that's the in intention to treat analysis. And that's I put that in bold because I think they do like to hear stuff like, like that sort of phrase um in the interviews. Um So just kind of just have a look about um uh our intention to treat analysis cos you probably will get an RCT in your um in your uh critical appraisal. So, yeah, and then selective outcome reporting bias is kind of is does what it says on the tin. So just like basically only reporting certain outcomes that maybe serve to benefit like an organization or um you know, fulfill a certain aim. Um um or, you know, just, just because just because they only want us, you know, they want to kind of give us some more skewed sort of view if you like. So the way you reduce that is by stating the primary outcome within the article. Um and also reducing this further by registering it in this thing called the International Standard Randomized Control trial ne number. Sorry. So these studies should all have this number. Um And that basically kind of standardizes um the this, this sort of um study, I don't know if there's anything else you want to say about that. Um It's quite, it's quite a lot to be honest with you with bias. Like there's a lot to think about um this is only just like a snapshot and by all means it's not perfect. Um But yeah, mo most studies have registration nowadays. Um things like um systematic reviews have registration, big studies using electronic health records. So any big data study would also have a registration number because you have to request um for the data and they'll ask you what you're looking for. So um most studies are preregistered and you can just mention if it is um with regards to intention to treat analysis, if they are asking you, which is better, um Both have their benefits. Basically, intention to treat is more relevant to clinical practice because it highlights um people that would drop out as well. So in real life, you would have people that would eventually stop taking whatever medication you gave them. Um So the um intention to treat analysis would be more accurate um on how effective it is in clinical practice. However, if you want to know how effective the drug is, so, if you're a drug company, I wanna know that how well your drug is doing, then the um the analysis where um you only analyze, I can't remember what the name of it is. Do you remember what it is called? Uh Sorry, say that I can, sorry, what was it? What intention to treat is one of the analysis. What is that? Oh God, God, I'm not gonna lie and um sorry, I can't remember off the top of my head. Now, um, when you Google intention to treat versus, it'll probably be the first one that pop up. But that is better to know how effective a drug is. So that analysis will tell you the true effectiveness of a drug. But it wouldn't tell you how well it would fare in clinical practice. I think it's per protocol to tell you how well a drug is. But it wouldn't tell you. Um Yeah, it wouldn't tell you how well during clinical practice for all, you know, because of the side effect profile, half of the people stop taking the drug, which means that it's basically not very effective in your clinical practice. Um So user resources, I literally just use this book for my whole A FP um process white six question interviews. It all you need, you don't really need anything more. They wouldn't ask you things about clinical governance as an academic foundation doctor. Most of your academic uh station would be um on an abstract or they'll give you um a table and ask you to analyze it. Um Yeah, I think my Oxford interview gave a result and asked to interpret it and ask about what study design can be used. And um the, the advantages disadvantages limitations of interpret uh of such um presenting data in that way and what I can and ask me to um calculate the odds ratio as well. OK. So I'll just, so it's Q and a uh right now, um I'll just go through the chat with the, um, the uh the, the, the um lecture is recorded. Um I'll get Ellen to approve it and upload it. Um, when, um we're done with this basically. Yeah. So if you guys have any questions, um like let us know, um as I say, like this is sort of the, the, it's like part of the a um academic station. So next week is more about kind of those graphs and things like that, you know, things that can be quite confusing for me. I was really, didn't know, you know, had of all of it. So it's really important to um like have some idea of the basic graphs and things like that and just, it's essentially saying what you see. Um Yeah, but they could well ask you about those things. So, do you guys have any questions? I'm just going through the messages. Um And if the interview information, just a general review, what should we expect? Um I supposed to give you these two options. One is to give you, if they're gonna give you a whole paper, they'll probably give you you one, they wouldn't get you to review a journal. Basically, it's either a paper or an abstract. If they give you a paper, they'll probably give it to you a few days or a day in advance uh for you to read it. Um If they're giving you an abstract, you'll most probably be day of interview. Um If they are gonna give you a whole paper to read, make sure you read it completely understand the paper. Um Go through any graph, any tables, any figures, any legends that's written. Um If there is an appendix, they wouldn't expect you to read that appendix, but it's good to mention that there is an appendix as well. Um If you tell the name of the journal, mention it as well, no worries. Any other questions. I think Alan's gonna plan a mock interview and we're working with um a FP doctors from other deaneries as well. Um Yeah, not sure how it work, but then we're gonna plan it for you guys here for a few two or three more minutes. If there's no new questions, then we'll just end it there. So, um with the personal questions, will they pick up on specific experience you mentioned in white space questions or will they be generic? Um So it can be a bit of both um for me. Um Just trying to remember. I'm trying to remember now. Um But they were quite generic questions. So like, you know, what sort of, what's your research interest? Um What they like to ask things like, you know, what are your career goals? Um How are you gonna balance being a, you know, an ade, you know, an academic foundation doctor? Basically, how are you gonna balance it with your clinical work, you know, academia and clinical work. Um What do you think are the challenges? Um So obviously that those will be things that, you know, will, will tackle in the, in the future stations. Um But, you know, it's important to like have a, have a general awareness of those general generic questions. Um However, you know, anything that you say in your wife's best questions go. So if, if you've mentioned experience, they could well ask you and pull you up on that. So just be prepared and just, you know, know your whitespace questions. Kylie, do you want to add anything else? Yeah, I would say just read through your whitespace question the day before. Um go through your CV. Print it out. Highlight anything that you mentioned, just know yourself well, basically. So if they ask you any questions, you know yourself and you can answer anything they ask you. Um So strangely, ask if they provide an abstract, do they ask you to critically appraise it or ask specific questions about the abstract? So from my experience, they first asked me to summarize the abstract. After summarizing it, they give you two minutes to summarize about 1 to 1 to 2 minute and then they'll stop you. So make sure you give them all the relevant information po your good stop because it covers everything that's important. Um And then they ask you very close questions, which is why have a pen and paper. Um write down things clearly into categories. So if they ask you something, you can just look at it and then you remember what they're asking. So once um so for my interview, once they uh they give you the abstract to read for 30 minutes and once you are in the interview, you have no access to your abstract. So if you don't write enough information down, you don't know what's going on, you can't answer anything. If they're asking you about results, you can't say anything if you don't write it down. What's your experience? Amira? Yeah. So I got, we got like a full paper. Um and we, we didn't have to, we had like a few days. So um it's quite different but we had to um we couldn't have like, I think we had like one sheet of, we got one sheet of notes, but we couldn't have any anything else, any other aids and we could have the paper with us. So that was the difference, I think. Um However, um yeah, I it was kind of similar actually, like we did have to like summarize it a little bit. Um But it was very, very snappy. Um And then yeah, they would ask like really, really like specific questions and it would be like turn to page three. What's this or, you know, or do you think, you know, very, very, very specific questions about the paper? So I think it's important to like just know, know it in inside out. Even if you do have the paper with you, you don't wanna look like you're kind of fumbling about you, you wanna know your stuff, um be very slick and smart with your answers. Um No, like key diagrams. Um And even when you have the paper, if you've got the paper for a few days, you know, go through, think, think about potential questions they could want, they could ask you. I think that's something that I didn't really do. But I think I would advise you guys, you know, um just sort of like ask someone if, if someone else has applied to SAB ask someone to sort of like, you know, test you on, on certain things or, or ask, ask you certain questions. I think that might be a useful thing to do. II wish I had like a bit more prep um for um the cos they can be a bit um You know, if, if you don't know your stuff, like it can be a bit confusing. So, yeah, thank you. The whole reason why you write it down and then put in clear section is so that you, uh you're just gonna glance at it, you're not going to read it when they're asking you questions. Um Because advice for that is to really practice with someone that, you know, will be harsh on you. You don't want someone that will tell you that you're good when you're not, you want someone to just be honest with you and tell you what you're doing well and what you're not doing well. Um, but you do need someone that will tell you if you're doing well as well, otherwise you're not gonna really improve and just, and you just keep trying to change when you are already good at certain things. Um, yeah, try, if you've never really done a critical appraisal before, try and do like one day, one a day until your interview, it doesn't take a long time. If you're doing an abstract, it's the same principle. If you're doing an abstract or full paper, you're basically going to go through the same things. Um The next question is, do all S FP include a critical analysis section in the academic portion. Both of mine did um One was an abstract and the other was a result. So I had to interpret the results um with no background information on what the study is. So they basically just show a table of graph, you interpret it and then they ask you the advantages disadvantages of presenting the data and such methods. Um What studies generally use this um this table, this graph. So for example, if they're giving you a Kaplan myograph, um if they're gonna ask you what study uses a Kaplan Mayer, you can say um Kya is generally used for Survivor analysis in a randomized controlled trial. Um And then they'll probably prompt you. What else can you use it for? You say the best would be a randomized controlled trial where confounding factors are adjusted for. Um but um authors also tend to use it for things like um a cohort study where you are able to follow things through time. So understanding common statistical analysis is important things like Kaplan Mayer with time if you know that you can mention that um things like when odds ratio are use of um s ratio generally used for case control. Um And basically, you only need to know the basic statistical analysis. You wouldn't need to know something complicated like a cox or person or like a bias stats, you just need to know basic stats. Is there anything you like to uh Amira sorry, you muted if in case you don't know. No, no, no. Um That's no, you've covered it. Um Yeah, I think II had just like a critical appraisal but they didn't really lab even though like in, in the prep bit like they're like, oh yeah, you're gonna have to critically appraise this paper like during the actual interview. They didn't ask you like give you a critical appraisal. They'll just like summarize this and then they'll ask you specific questions. So um but the academic portion, yeah, I think, I think most, most will include like a critical appraisal because it's just the most, it's, it's a good way of having a gauge of like your understanding of research um in a very short space of time. Um You can kind of get a lot from it. Um So yeah, there's not really much more to add, to be, to be honest with her. Just so you guys know, uh uh a feedback form form will be sent later on. And then if you feel that feedback form, we prioritize you for the interviews as well. Yeah, please do fill out the feedback. If you guys have any questions, you can also send it to um our email, someone would check on it. We may not be able to check on it every day. But if you have any questions, you can send it to the applied to sp email and one of us will go through it probably once a week or twice a week um to answer your question. Any other questions at all guys just hold and stay for another minute and then we'll meet if no one else has any questions. Ok? I think, I think I'll probably call it a day. Um Thank you guys so much for attending. Um um And thank you and uh part participating as well. Um But yeah, as you said, like we'll be sending out like the feedback form and, and also like the recording as well. Hopefully, once this gets approved. Um So it shouldn't, hopefully it shouldn't be too long until you get that. Um But um yeah, any other questions um just email and um, hopefully we'll get back to you about it and good luck with the rest of your preparation. Bye bye guys.