An evidence-based medicine approach for case presentations by trainees

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a key aspect of medical training that can be challenging for trainees to learn. Tumour boards (TBs) are multidisciplinary meetings that are often opportunities for trainees to deliver patient case presentations, which is another integral part of medical education; however, TBs are time intensive, typically lack academic structure and may fail to emphasise EBM.

To design a systematic approach to improve both trainee satisfaction and the level of evidence cited at typical academic TBs.

From 2017 to 2018, Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) methodology was used to develop a systematic approach for medical oncology trainees towards TBs. Statistical testing was used to assess which characteristics of a patient case made it more difficult to apply EBM. Anonymous surveys were distributed to trainees before and after the intervention to assess the educational utility.

We developed a shared voluntary case database, so that references with higher levels of evidence could be rapidly recalled and applied to similar cases. We then developed EBM-focused review sessions to highlight database trends. Both the database and the review sessions had high participation rates (>90% cases had voluntary data entry), and each were reported to have educational value by trainees.

A two-step implementation of an easy-to-use case database followed by review sessions focused on high-yield sources of evidence improved trainee satisfaction for TBs, but did not significantly improve the strength of the evidence cited.