Journal Club

Over the last few months I've thought of several more good things I'd like to do when a PI. Of course, I don't take the time to write them down and they are forgotten.

One I've remembered is that I would like to have a regular journal club. Eventually I've gotten into a good habit of checking key journal TOCs and keeping tabs on certain authors for new items in my field. And, I can do a decent job of critically reading a paper. But, there are still things that others point out when occasionally discussing a paper. Once or twice early in my grad tenure here we tried to do a club, but there wasn't motivation from the students' side to drive it. Another lab here has regular bi-weekly meetings where a different student presents a new paper. I like this general idea, but would probably limit it to once a month, depending on the size of my lab. I can see that my advisor rarely has time now to effectively read new papers, so as a PI I think it'd be a good opportunity for someone else to review the key points for me. And, it is a good training opportunity for the presenters themselves as well as for others to react to and ask questions in response to the discussion. One thing I'm proposing for my post-doc grant training plan is that I'll initiate and direct a journal club within the lab. If I push it, and find the articles to review (shouldn't take too much work) on maybe a bi-monthly basis, it'd be a good learning experience for future use.