Background/Purpose: Journal clubs are an essential part of lifelong learning for physicians. After fellowship, access to journal club discussions may be limited. TheMednet is a physician-only online platform that allows for dissemination of expert knowledge in a searchable, private, and moderated question and answer (Q&A) format. A clinically focused online journal club was designed and hosted on theMednet to engage rheumatologists and rheumatology fellows. Here we describe our experience in establishing a rheumatology journal club on theMednet.

Methods: TheMednet launched in Rheumatology in July 2020 and the first online journal club was implemented in March 2021. A physician editorial team reviewed major rheumatology publications and identified journal articles with significant clinical impact. An academic partnership with the journals allowed for sharing of the article with theMednet community. The article was distributed via email to registered rheumatologists with a call for questions. Study authors and content experts were recruited by the editorial team to answer questions submitted by the rheumatology community. The Q&A was distributed over 3-4 weeks in email newsletters.

Results: Five journal clubs were conducted between March 2021 and January 2023. Journal club articles and questions are listed in Table 1. The articles were downloaded 936 times. On average, 278 users at 122 unique institutions, including academic and community were reached during each journal club. A total of 19 questions were included among the five programs and comprised 36 individual answers from 6 authors and 3 non-author content experts. Q&A were viewed 4,740 times. In all five journal clubs, at least one author of the chosen manuscript participated in the online discussion and in three of the five journal clubs, non-author content experts participated. Eleven polls created by the editorial team resulted in 430 individual poll voters participating and a total of 447 votes. The most engaging journal club was ORAL Surveillance with 1,777 question views and least engaging was Racial Disparities in Pediatric Lupus Nephritis with 465 question views. As of May 2023, theMednet rheumatology community included 1,760 practicing rheumatologists across the United States.

Conclusion: TheMednet Journal Club feature is an effective way to connect academic and community rheumatologists around high impact publications in the field of rheumatology. Journal club engages physician users to submit Q&A and participate in interactive polls. Physicians are able to share insights on clinical practice and to exchange viewpoints on translation of data into clinical practice.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/implementation-of-a-clinically-focused-online-journal-club-in-rheumatology-experience-from-themednet/