China Obstetrics and Gynecology Journal Club (COG-JOCS)

October 24, 2013 updated by: Richard S. Legro, M.D., Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

An English Language Obstetrics and Gynecology Journal Club to Improve Medical English in China: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The purpose of this study is to determine if an intensive journal club based on articles and materials provided on the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology Website improves written and spoken comprehension of medical English in a population of Chinese medical professionals.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This will be a randomized educational trial of an intensive journal club compared to a self study journal club (1:1 randomization). Randomization will take place after baseline.

The population will consist of 50 medical professionals at Heilongjiang University in Harbin China, who agree to participate in an 8 week educational intervention.

This study will assess the impact of applying English for Specific Purposes(ESP) pedagogy to foreign medical education and specifically evaluate learning in the field of obstetrics and gynecology(Ob-Gyn). ESP is a subdivision of a wider field, Language for Specific Purposes(LSP), defined as the area of inquiry and practice in the development of language programs for people who need a language to meet a predictable range of communicative needs. ESP emphasizes teaching language in context and designs a curriculum around the results of a needs assessment, to more accurately determine which language skills are of priority: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Part of the theory behind ESP suggests that being able to use the vocabulary and structures that students learn in a meaningful context reinforces what is taught and increases motivation. Further, findings from a study by Okamura (2006) that examined how learners succeed in mastering scientific discourse in English showed that they focused on reading academic texts in their field to learn typical writing patterns. This is as opposed to junior learners who focused on mastering the English language by reading English texts written by authors from a breadth of fields. This application of ESP thus reflects how content-specific source articles could serve as rhetorical models and suggests that source articles are able to mediate scholarly writing and learning within the zone of proximal developmental; that is, learners are simultaneously gaining new content knowledge while increasing their skill base.

The proposed intervention is to design an ESP curriculum for medical professionals, specifically Ob-Gyn physicians and researchers at a Chinese Medical University, based on the journal club format and source articles. The study will quantitatively assess the impact of this model on student's ESP language comprehension as well as determine the necessity of the traditional "facilitator" role for a journal club whose purpose is to foster language literacy in non-English speaking universities.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

50

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • China
      • Harbin, China
        • First Affiliated Hospital Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine
  • United States
    • Pennsylvania
      • Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States, 17033-0850
        • Penn State Hershey Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Chinese medical professional

Exclusion Criteria:

  • English speaking fluency
  • Non-Chinese speaking medical professional

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Self Study Journal Club
25 Chinese Medical Professionals that will be participating in Self Study Journal Club Meetings three times a week for one hour for 8 weeks with interactive questions and answers and discussion of the journal articles.
Behavioral: Self Study Journal Club
This Self Study Journal Club will read articles and prepare written answers to the study questions on their own time. The participants will read 24 articles; 12 gynecology and 12 obstetrics, based on monthly journal clubs available online at the Obstetrics and Gynecology website. The first and last article will serve as a basis for the oral and written exam in which they will be tested on comprehension, verbal and written Medical English.
Experimental: Intensive Journal Club
25 Chinese Medical Professionals that will be participating Face to Face Journal Club Meetings three times a week for one hour for 8 weeks along with a native English speaking mentor.
Behavioral: Intensive Journal Club
This Intensive Journal Club will read articles and prepare written answers to the study questions along with a fluent English speaker. The participants will read 24 articles; 12 gynecology and 12 obstetrics, based on monthly journal clubs available online at the Obstetrics and Gynecology website. Participants will prepare oral presentations of the studies and answers to the study questions. They will have interactive sessions with this fluent English speaking monitor 3 times a week, one hour sessions for 8 weeks. The first and last article will serve as a basis for the oral and written exam in which they will be tested on comprehension, verbal and written Medical English.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Change in score from baseline on a 30 question multiple choice exam (questions and answers will be read to the participants) based on APGO-CREOGH shelf exams.
Time Frame: Baseline to 8 weeks
Baseline to 8 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Change in score from baseline on a written (short answer) exam and on an oral exam.
Time Frame: Baseline to 8 weeks
Baseline to 8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Collaborators

First Affiliated Hospital of Heilongjiang Chinese Medicine University

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Richard S Legro, M.D., Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2013

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 29, 2013

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 29, 2013

First Posted (Estimate)

May 1, 2013

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

October 25, 2013

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 24, 2013

Last Verified

October 1, 2013

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 42338

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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