Twenty-Four Years' Experience With a Pulmonary Pathology Journal Club: What Have We Learned?

Abstract

Context.—: A monthly pathology journal club has met for 24 years. It was established to help members stay apprised of the literature relevant to diagnostic pulmonary pathology.

Objective.—: To assess whether the journal club met its goal and to report on opportunities identified for improvement.

Design.—: To determine whether articles chosen for discussion as opposed to notation were more significant, Scopus citation indices for article types reviewed from January 2007 to November 2023 were compared. A survey of current faculty was undertaken to determine if the club was meeting expectations and to identify improvement opportunities.

Results.—: Articles from January 2007 to November 2023 included 858 discussed and 3385 noted. Mean (SD) citation count was 103.0 (409.80) for discussion and 64.9 (259.77) for notation articles (P < .001). The citation count was noticeably right skewed, as articles with high citation counts inflated the mean. Members were mostly satisfied with the way the journal club was structured and managed. Members most valued the summary of the articles, followed by the live discussion. Opportunities for improvement included decreasing the number of journals scanned, decreasing detail in summaries, and using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate summary generation. A pilot using AI anecdotally reduced preparatory time, but the human-edited summary included more specific context, critical commentary, and enhanced take-home messages, providing a more nuanced analysis.

Conclusions.—: The journal club met its initial goal. Opportunities for improvement have been identified including the use of generative AI to facilitate article summarization.