Organising an English journal club in the developing world.

English language journal clubs are fundamental for teaching and collaboration in developing areas T he medical journal club remains at the heart of evidence based medicine among teaching institutions. Previous reviews have analysed the importance of journal clubs in English speaking nations. A meta-analysis of postgraduate journal clubs using Cochrane-like criteria for selection of papers established that journal clubs broaden a postgraduate student's sense of clinical epidemiology and biostatis-tics, reading habits, and using medical literature in clinical situations. 4 Previous analysis in this area has weighed heavily on the side of English speaking journal clubs in nations where English fluency is assumed. This commentary explores the role of the English journal club outside of areas where English is the mother tongue. Three central questions are discussed: (1) Why do so few nations where English is the second language have English journal clubs? (2) What are the relative advantages of promoting English journal clubs in these nations? (3) How can you establish an English journal club in your hospital? On a worldwide scale, approximately 325 million people use English as their mother tongue, and at least twice as many people speak English as a second or third language. While English journal clubs are routinely a part of postgraduate medicine culture in developed countries, they are rare in developing world hospitals and medical training centres. Lack of journal access (print or electronic), lack of time or incentives for doctors to participate, and lack of resources make journal clubs difficult to start in the developing world. Oral English proficiency may also be a problem in many areas, since foreign physicians have few opportunities to speak English. Journal clubs currently in progress are more likely to be in the native tongue, and focus more on purely clinical considerations. As a result, few institutions in the developing world currently have English speaking journal clubs. Although there are barriers to creating English journal clubs in nations where English is the second language, the benefits of establishing such mental exercises are considerable. Beyond the benefits already discussed, journal clubs provide a valuable opportunity to enhance communication skills and English proficiency within a discipline. International research and collaborations are becoming more numerous, linking developed and developing countries in more firm relationships. Providing time for foreign researchers to practise oral English in the context of science and their professional niche builds capacity for future international cooperative projects. Since English …