Trusted evidence. Informed decisions. Better health.

Issue 9 | September 2021 (next issue November 2021)

ECP Group News and Announcements

A message from the newly appointed Chair of the Cochrane Early Career Professionals Group

Ten years ago, when I first heard about Cochrane, I knew that I wanted to be part of this worldwide collaboration. I believe that by supporting Cochrane, we can make an impactful change in the world. Today, I am deeply honored to be charing the Cochrane Early Career Professional (ECP) group. We are a group of junior researchers, clinicians, and professionals interested in improving healthcare in the world. If anyone is interested in collaborating with Cochrane, please reach out by email (ecp@cochrane.org) or follow us on Twitter (@CochraneECP). You can also write to me personally at: santiago.castiello@psy.ox.ac.uk.

Welcoming the new ECP Steering Group members!

On behalf of the Cochrane Early Career Professionals' community, we would like to welcome our new steering group members: Tom Calderbank, Luis Ortiz, Mariam Alwerdani, Eugenie Johnson, Anna Harvey, Ceecee Britten-Jones, Alejandro Hernández Posadas, and Elpida Vounzoulaki. Congratulations! We are delighted to have you on board, and we are very pleased to be joined by new members who always bring new ideas and energy to this community.

Spanish Journal Club 4: presentations by Marta Roque and Gemma Villanueva

On July 28, 2021, we held our fourth Journal Club with two distinguished speakers. Marta Roque presented on Tools to elaborate Systematic Reviews according to the research question and Gemma Villanueva presented on Experiences with Distiller SR. Check out our playlist on Cochrane's YouTube channel for more videos from previous Spanish Journal Clubs. Subscribe to the slack channel #all-ecp-español to be part of our active community and receive our updates. You can also contact Santiago Castiello if you are interested in presenting your work in the future.

News from our Members

Dolly Sud, Mental Health Pharmacist and Ph.D. Student, UK

This paper is a particularly important one as we explored the impact of physical illness on the relationship between patients with severe mental illness and their informal carers. To do this, we recruited patients and their carers to the study (dyad research). This study establishes the importance of caring dyads as an analytical tool to better reveal the experience of illness than simply looking separately at patients with long-term conditions and informal carers. We demonstrate that the shared experience of a phenomenon generates similar and contrasting experiences that impact on the management of illness and living with a complex medical condition.

Audrey Tan, Public Policy Engagement Facilitator at the University College London in UK describes her recently published Cochrane review.

I’ve been involved with Cochrane since 2018 and am fortunate to have recently published my second Cochrane Systematic Review. Our review assessed whether exercise programmes before surgery to repair abnormally dilated aortas prevent negative outcomes during and after surgery. The findings suggest that prehabilitation exercise might slightly reduce cardiac and renal complications compared to no exercise, but overall, more high-quality studies with large sample sizes and long-term follow-up are needed.

Have you recently published a paper, presented at a conference, written a blog, or done something amazing that you want to share? Send us a brief description, your Twitter handle, and a headshot (if you wish) to ecp@ochrane.org to be featured in our upcoming newsletter.

Trainings and Events

Upcoming opportunities

📢 Cochrane TaskExchange is looking for a Cochrane Information Specialist to help with a task. Check out more here.

📢 'Science in the Break'

Not shy? Want to talk about your research, methods, experience with Cochrane, the Early Career Professionals Group, or ways to get involved with Cochrane? 'Science in the Break' does interviews for YouTube (with audio as a podcast on Spotify) with a focus on young researchers, health sciences, and rehab. If you are interested, they can be reached at scienceinthebreak@gmail.com. If you do record a session and Cochrane is promoted within it, we will do a news item on Cochrane and tag you on social media!

📢 Help the Cochrane Library team and get some membership points!

Early Career Professionals, can you share your experience with the Cochrane Library in a short virtual call? The product development team behind the Cochrane Library are looking to talk to users of the Library about forthcoming features to improve the user experience of the website. The taskwill involve either a 30 min virtual call where you talk to a team member or complete a survey about how you use the Library, and give your feedback on current and future features.

Training resources

📢 Cochrane Convenes Plenary Session: Cochrane Convenes is an online event hosted by Cochrane, sponsored by WHO, and co-organised with COVID-END (COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-making). Free registrations are open now for the public plenary session. Everyone welcome to join! 14th October 2021, 9:30 UTC.

📢 How can you get involved with Cochrane?

How does Cochrane work as an organisation, and how can you get involved? This video was recorded as part of a Cochrane ECP Group online meet-up, where Ursula Gonthier from the Cochrane Membership team explains all! Join Cochrane!

📢 2021 Cochrane Methods Symposium: Evidence synthesis in public health and complex interventions: Check out the free interactive webinars of the Symposium and register. Session 1 will be on 12th October 2021. An amazing opportunity to hear from a stellar methods!

📢 Free seminar from the AcademyHealth and NIH on implementation science. Check the recording out!

📢 Cochrane International Mobility: A global exchange programme for the Cochrane Community: This programme provides networking opportunities for people who wish to learn from Cochrane colleagues. There a placements all over the world! Take a look and be sure to apply!

📢 Why wasn’t I quoted? Who wrote that headline? Is your deadline really in one hour? Watch the webinar recording of 'Ask a Reporter Anything: A briefing for scientists about how the news works'

📢 World Evidence-Based Healthcare Day is happening on 20 October: This is a great opportunity to get involved and be featured. Make sure to check it out.

📢 'A day with...': New virtual events to connect and learn from Cochrane Methods Groups: Catch-up on past events and watch this space for announcements for 2022!

📢 Spanish Journal Club recordings: ¡Felices de compartir la grabaciones del reciente Journal Club en Español! Herramientas para RS según tipo de pregunta: youtu.be/BqMUtKM8V4s. Experiencias con DistillerSR: youtu.be/k04pdcN9nt8.

📢 Why Piggybacking on Your Brand’s Social Posts is Great for Your Career: An interesting article to learn how sharing Cochrane and Cochrane Group posts can be great for networking and future job moves!

📢 Learn about how Emory medical students are visually explaining Cochrane #COVID19 evidence. Make sure to check it out.

Learning Live is a series of monthly webinars open to everyone and an archive of previous webinars. Upcoming webinar:

- Introduction to qualitative research and qualitative evidence synthesis *QES webinar series* by Dr. Jane Noyes, Professor in Health and Social Services Research and Child Health, Bangor University, UK and Dr. Kate Flemming, Professor of Hospice Practice and Evidence Synthesis, University of York, UK (28 October)

- Question formulation and searching for qualitative evidence *QES webinar series* by Dr Andrew Booth, Reader in Evidence Based Information Practice & Director of Information, University of Sheffield, UK (15 November)

- Selecting studies and assessing methodological limitations *QES webinar series* by Dr. Jane Noyes, Professor in Health and Social Services Research and Child Health, Bangor University, UK (13 December)

Cochrane Starter Pack

TaskExchange - Use your skills to help authors complete reviews

Cochrane Crowd - Volunteer to help categorise and summarise healthcare evidence

Online learning - Resources relevant to systematic reviews and evidence-based medicine

Interactive Learning (Cochrane account required) - how to conduct a systematic review

Evidence Essentials (free but Cochrane account required) - introduction to health evidence

Learning events - find information about upcoming training (in-person and online)

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