Through interviews and surveys conducted for Production Models, as part of Project Transform, it is clear that the Cochrane Community cares deeply and passionately about how Cochrane Reviews are produced. We care because we want to see it done well, and we want to see it done better. Tari Turner, from Project Transform, tells us more about  the significant challenges people are facing in producing reviews and the great ideas people have for how we might improve.

As Toni Morrison said, “All important things are hard.”

Producing Cochrane Reviews is hard work. However, working with Cochrane, doing Cochrane Reviews, is not really just a day job, a path to a pay packet, for any of us. We all believe, to varying extents on different days, that we are participants in, contributors to, members of, a noble, altruistic enterprise. We believe that Cochrane Reviews have the potential to make a difference; that we produce trusted evidence that leads to informed decisions that result in better health; and so we care about the way our reviews are produced. We want to make sure that the hard, important work of Cochrane Reviews is done well.

The Production Models component of Project Transform is built on just this goal, to make sure that we are producing high-quality Cochrane Reviews as efficiently as possible.

It’s been a great privilege to hear from many of you over the last six months about how you are producing Cochrane Reviews. We’ve talked about what’s working, what’s not, and how we might improve the way we produce reviews.

Through interviews and surveys conducted for Production Models, as part of Project Transform, it’s become very clear to me that we care deeply and passionately about how Cochrane Reviews are produced. We care because we want to see it done well, and we want to see it done better.

It’s no surprise that many of us face significant challenges to producing reviews. Challenges with the increasing complexity of methods; with keeping authors on board and the process on track; and with the length of the review process.

You’ve also got great ideas for how we might improve. Many of you are trialling things as I type, and there is a lot to be learnt from what is already underway. There is also potential to pilot some approaches to

• improve clarity of roles and expectations of authors and Cochrane Review Groups;
• ensure continuity and consistency of input throughout the production process;
• actively project manage the review process;
• centralise some aspects of review production;
• break reviews into smaller ‘chunks’;
• improve approaches to capacity building and information sharing about review production.

It’s been great to have this conversation with you, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the conversation moves from here, but all this talking only matters if we can move from conversation to action, make changes to improve our production processes, produce better reviews more efficiently.

It might seem incidental, but another important thing you told me is that we should use this opportunity to review our way of working as a chance to free ourselves up, to “remove the drudgery” and to allow us to “focus on the fun”.

Because it might be hard, important work, but producing Cochrane Reviews can be, and should be fun.

If you’d like to see an overview of the result of the report it’s here; if you’d like to read the detail of the report, it’s available here. If you’d like to add your voice to the conversation, please email me at tari.turner@monash.edu  

Tari Turner

Project Transform

Support for Project Transform was provided by Cochrane and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1114605). The contents of the published material are solely the responsibility of the Administering Institution, a Participating Institution or individual authors and do not reflect the views of the NHMRC.

This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Natalie Bradford PhD, MPH, BNurs, RN, Queensland Youth Cancer Service, Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.

The Cochrane Nursing Care Field (CNCF) continues to expend the number of summaries produced within its collaboration of international nursing journals and widen its reach in the dissemination of best practices evidence in frontline primary health care, and much of the Field’s success in these areas is reliant on the substantial contributions of its volunteer writing staff. Natalie Bradford has become an active contributor to the CNCF and has produced numerous high quality Cochrane Review summaries that have been featured in many of the Field’s collaborating journals.   

With an extensive clinical background, Natalie Bradford has enjoyed a nursing career spanning more than 25 years. She commenced her nursing career in paediatric oncology and palliative care, where she worked on a part-time basis while her children were young. In 2009 Natalie started a research project with the University of Queensland, which opened up a whole new world for her. She started her Master’s in Public Health at this time and developed a keen interest in study design and epidemiological studies. During this time Natalie led numerous small research projects and was successful in getting this work published. Working within an academic environment, Natalie eventually decided to commence her PhD, which she completed in 2014. Her thesis investigated how home telehealth technologies could be used to deliver specialist palliative care services for children living in rural and remote parts of Queensland. Natalie now works as a Nurse Researcher for the Queensland Youth Cancer Service, and maintains an academic position with Queensland University of Technology.  

On her reasons for joining and actively supporting the CNCF, Natalie writes: “Research has become a really important part of my practice and I get excited about the possibilities of making a difference and being able to improve outcomes for patients, or the quality and efficiency of services.  I completed a Cochrane review with some colleagues in 2014 and was simultaneously intrigued, inspired and daunted by the level of detail and the rigour and depth that was involved to complete the review! I also knew that many other nurses wouldn’t have the time or opportunity to even read the whole review, let alone partake in undertaking one.  This is why the CNCF Cochrane summaries are so important.  They make the evidence generated in a full review accessible and digestible for nurses.  I really enjoy writing for the CNCF, preparing a summary is a great way to stay on top of the current evidence, and to share relevant evidence with other.”

Thank you, Natalie for your contribution in helping to bring accessible Cochrane evidence to nurses globally!

Would your Cochrane Group like to tell the community about a beloved contributor? Email mumoquit@cochrane.org

Andrea Cervera is a translator and Communications Manager at Cochrane Iberoamerica. Here she explains her experience of translating and publishing blogshots from Cochrane UK and their impact on social media. This follows the recent blog post from Sarah Chapman, Cochrane UK, on how groups can create blogshots.

We at Cochrane Iberoamerica regularly share interesting, notable, or relevant Cochrane Reviews on our Facebook page and our Twitter profile (@CochraneIberoam), although I started noticing a while ago that if these weren’t presented as a podcast, short feature, or even as simple pictures they could seem tedious and overwhelming to an audience unfamiliar with Cochrane’s work. I often thought – as a lay person myself – that we should put more effort into reaching a broader audience by creating attractive and simplified dissemination material based on reviews (something like a trendy PLS). My counterpart at Cochrane UK must have had a similar reasoning previously, because when I first saw their Cochrane UK blogshots, I felt as if they had read my mind.

I began by asking Muriah Umoquit and Hayley Hassan if it was possible to translate the blogshots and they guided me through the initial steps:

1. If you are interested in translating blogshots you can find them sorted by category on the Cochrane UK website: Blogshot & infographic archive.
2. You can download the blogshot template in your own group’s colour from the Cochrane Community Templates page. Remember to add your Cochrane logo and the footnote: “Translated Cochrane UK blogshot” to the Power Point template.
3. Pictures for use in Cochrane blogshots, websites, newsletters, and social media posts can be obtained at no cost to your group by contacting Muriah.

Once all this is done, you can start translating the text and choosing the image to accompany it. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy the whole translation process; blogshots are short and straightforward texts and you can switch topic frequently, learning as you go.

Example of a blogshot in Spanish:

When you’re happy with your blogshots, you just need to save it as an image (jpg, png, etc.) and decide where you are going to post it. I normally post it on the Cochrane Iberoamerica website under Resources together with the link to the review in Spanish published in the Biblioteca Cochrane Plus and disseminate it through our social media networks. One piece of advice: I recommend posting blogshots as images and not links – both on Facebook and Twitter – since this way the picture is larger and more noticeable. At this point, you can sit back and relax, and wait for the likes and retweets to roll in.

In conclusion, our experience with blogshots has been highly positive and their impact on social media undeniable.  My suspicions were confirmed when I observed that our Facebook fans almost doubled in the first two months.  In fact, our most successful Facebook post was “Cuándo reemplazar el catéter venoso http://ow.ly/Xv6Vb” [when to replace a peripheral venous catheter]. It reached over 8,800 people and achieved 142 reactions, comments, and shares.

Our Twitter results are equally satisfactory: our Twitter followers haven’t stopped growing ever since we posted our first blogshot on December 2015 and the tweet with the most interactions also corresponded to a blogshot: “AINE tópico: buena alternativa al fármaco oral para el dolor musculoesquelético http://ow.ly/XDr4Q  pic.twitter.com/q5r3R401SB” [Topical NSAIDs: a good alternative to oral drugs for musculoskeletal pain], with over 350 interactions.

Andrea Cervera
Translator and Communications Manager
Cochrane Iberoamerica

Sarah Chapman is a knowledge broker at Cochrane UK. She writes and edits their weekly blog, Evidently Cochrane, and helps to shares Cochrane evidence across social media platforms.

It’s nine months since we started experimenting with blogshots as a way to share evidence. You can read more about how we developed them in this blog post: http://www.evidentlycochrane.net/blogshots-evidence-at-a-glance/

These images with brief information, shared though social media, are proving to be really popular. I’m noticing more pictures in my Twitter feed and blogshots fit with this increased appetite for images. They also provide useful information fast. People share them, comment on them and many click the accompanying link to the review (or blog, or other resource). Our most popular so far have been the blogshots accompanying the portion size review, which quickly generated more than 1000 clicks to the review.

It’s fantastic that others in Cochrane are translating our blogshots or looking to make their own and now seems like a good time to bring you up to date with how we’re making and using blogshots and to offer a few tips, in the hope that this will encourage you to blogshot (new verb!) your reviews!

What to put into a blogshot?

• Image: Something clear and simple, which will allow the title to show up. It's also worth considering the impact images have. It can be hard finding what I consider to be truthful images when selecting from a library of stock images, but worth taking some time over. Choose well and they can get the blogshot noticed and reinforce the written information; get it wrong and they can mislead, annoy or even make people feel judged. It's particularly challenging, and emotive, with subjects like mental health conditions. Searching related terms brings up numerous photos of people tearing at their hair or making exaggerated expressions. I chose the image on the right for a blogshot on panic disorder, which I hoped was both more respectful and more truthful. Please contact Muriah Umoquit in the Communications and External Affairs department. She can help get you an appropriate images, at no cost to your group.
• Title: Short and simple.
• Key message: share one or more pieces of information from the review. I put the key message(s) before the information about the review, having had feedback that people want to read this first. In line with work done by Clare Glenton and colleagues, I use the qualifiers ‘probably’ and ‘may’ for moderate and low GRADE ratings, and ‘unknown’/’uncertain’ for very low quality evidence. (More about GRADE in a moment).
• Information about the review: I always say it’s a Cochrane review (you could add ‘New’ or ‘Updated’) and give the number of studies and participants. For blogshots aimed at a lay audience (our Evidence for Everyday Health Choices series), I use ‘studies’ rather than specifying the study design, as the latter is meaningless to many and doesn’t tell people much. I may give some brief information about population/intervention/comparator/outcomes.
• Quality of evidence/GRADE? We recently reviewed our decision to use only reviews with GRADE for blogshots, knowing that this means we are missing out on sharing evidence from many reviews in this popular format. We have decided to stick with this, as GRADE helps me to prepare an accurate evidence summary, in a short time, using consistent phrasing (as outlined above). However, we have left out any explicit reference to GRADE or evidence quality in the Everyday Health Choices blogshots and will now extend this to all our blogshots. The majority of readers will not be familiar with GRADE and we feel it is more helpful to use it only to inform our key messages.
• The all-important link: It is vital to share a link to the review, or other related material, in the tweet or other post along with the blogshot. We make a bit.ly link for each blogshot, which allows us to see how many clicks it’s generated, a simple measure of the success of the blogshot.  We had been giving this within the image too (the ‘find out more’ bit), but have decided to abandon this as it’s not clickable and just clutters the space. However, we will put it at the bottom, along with the hashtags, to help us keep track of which link belongs to the blogshot.

One review, more than one blogshot?

This is definitely worth considering, where there are multiple key messages to share (we made four for the portion size review, each with the same link but a different message) or where you wish to target more than one audience.

We make blogshots in our general template but also for each of our ‘Evidence for Everyday’ series, for nurses, midwives, patients and (from this June) Allied Health Professionals.  You could consider dual blogshots for health professionals and patients, perhaps, and distinguish between them using a different coloured title, as well as tailoring the language and detail for each target audience. Here are some examples to show you how you can change of the look of the template:

Where to share?

We share our blogshots on Twitter and Facebook; Pinterest, where we have created boards for each series, and our Cochrane UK website, where they are archived by category and available for anyone to download. We have also just started to post them on the image-sharing social media channel Instagram, using an adapted square template.

Each social media channel has its own advantages and audiences. Instagram tends to be used to 'humanise' a brand, showing that there are people working behind the company logo. It is also increasingly it is being used for information dissemination and campaigning. The WHO use it to deliver information cards with campaigning hashtags. We are doing something similar. 

We will post the square blogshots along with photos of events to increase our brand reach across social media and target a new audience away from twitter and facebook. 

Tempted to make your own?

We are very happy for you to suggest reviews you think would make good blogshots, but making them yourself is easy and something you might want to consider.

Blogshot templates in each Cochrane Community colour are available for you to download here. Once you have the template you just need to plug in your logo, picture, and text.

The template is a starting point, but some of the decisions you make about what to share may differ from ours. We are learning as we go and expect to make changes according to what we learn along the way.

We’re looking forward to seeing how our Cochrane colleagues adopt and adapt this popular format!

Sarah Chapman

Knowledge Broker, Cochrane UK

Dr Ray Moynihan is Senior Research Fellow at Bond University and co-chair of the scientific committee for the international Preventing Overdiagnosis conference taking place in Barcelona in September 2016. In this blog post he invites you to Barcelona, and explores the growing interest within Cochrane in tackling the problem of too much medicine – being addressed in an increasing number of initiatives worldwide.

Just a month before Cochrane’s annual meeting in Seoul, the fourth Preventing Overdiagnosis meeting will happen in downtown Barcelona, 20-22 September – the first time in the Spanish-speaking world.  For those who haven’t been to any of the first three meetings, it’s well worth a look.

Like many Cochrane gatherings, the international Preventing Overdiagnosis conference is full of independent-minded and rigorous scientists, clinicians, consumers, and policy-folk from across multiple disciplines and as many nations.  For anyone who currently doesn’t have overdiagnosis and overtreatment on their radar, it might be time you did.

But even if you miss the Barcelona conference, there’ll be a big dose of overdiagnosis at the Cochrane Colloquium in Souel in October. This year’s opening plenary is focused solely on overdiagnosis. Australian Professor Alex Barratt will offer an overview of the magnitude of the problem, and Professor Jenny Doust is billed to talk about using evidence to combat it.

And the person giving the annual Cochrane lecture, Professor Paul Glasziou, will likely find it hard not to mention the threat to human health from overdiagnosis as he looks to the future of evidence-informed health care. The high profile of this problem of too much medicine in Seoul is not so surprising – co-chair of the Seoul Colloquium is Dr Hyeong Sik Ahn, who happens to be not only the Director of Cochrane Korea, but also another member of the scientific committee for the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference.

Many initiatives around the world are starting to address the problem of too much medicine. JAMA Internal Medicine is running Less is More, the BMJ is running the Too Much Medicine campaign, and the Lown Institute has launched Right Care. The Quaternary prevention movement is growing, Choosing Wisely is happening in more than a dozen countries; the Royal College of General Practitioners now has an overdiagnosis working group, as does the Guidelines International Network.  

Given the feelings among many within the Cochrane community, it seems inevitable that the collaboration will likewise soon formalize its response to the problem of too much medicine. Somehow a sensitivity to the need to reduce medical excess will be built into the collaboration’s very infrastructure.  As one of the most respected, ,and independent players in healthcare, Cochrane is ideally placed to help address this mess.

As John Ioannidis and others have pointed out, too much of the “evidence” being synthesized in systematic views is corrupted by sponsorship from companies seeking to maximize markets – which we know tends to produce more favourable outcomes than independent research. The fact of that sponsorship needs to be given a much higher profile in Cochrane Reviews – ideally in the abstract.  Risk of bias tools should start to take sponsorship into account and it’s surely well past time to start discounting for the effects of commercial trial funding, particularly when the magnitude of benefits are small, and the uncertainty around them large. 

Assessments of diagnostic technologies – and systematic reviews of those assessments – need to be more sensitive to whether new tests are picking up “abnormalities” which would be better left unknown.

And ideally Cochrane Reviews can start throwing more critical scrutiny onto the disease definitions that turn more and more people into patients, as well as the interventions that are used to test and treat them.

In short there’s going to be a lot more talk this year about Preventing Overdiagnosis from Spain to South Korea.

Abstracts submission for Preventing Overdiagnosis conference closes as of 15 April; early bird registration fees are still available. More at www.preventingoverdiagnosis.net

Alain Amstutz, Elina Christes, Jérémy Glasner, Alen Hascic, and  Patrick Schmitt attended the last  Cochrane Colloquium. They shared information about Cochrane and their experience in the National Journal of Swiss Medical Students recently. This journal is distributed in all six medical faculties of Switzerland at the beginning of the semester. Below is an excerpt of their report.

Cochrane’s 23^rd Colloquium took place at the beginning of October 2015 in Vienna, Austria with the theme ‘Filtering the Information Overload for Better Decisions'. During five days filled with conferences, workshops, and poster fairs, the problem described in the theme was discussed and processed, looking for solutions and approaches how to tackle this important difficulty.

Alen Hascic, recalling his experience, said, “At the Colloquium one could feel that one is part of something big. Not only because there were over 1,300 participants from all over the world, but mostly because every individual wanted to add their part to aid numerous decisions based on scientific research, that will be taken daily by medical personnel.”

UAEM @ Cochrane Colloquium

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a Swiss Medical Students' Association (SMSA) associated project and had a unique role throughout the Cochrane Colloquium. Beginning at the European Conference of UAEM 2014 in Basel, there has been a growing collaboration between the two organizations. Cochrane strongly supports and works in the field of Access to Data, since only complete publication of all results can truly produce an adequate meta-analysis (see publication bias). Cochrane joined forces with UAEM, which also fights for Access to Medicine and greater transparency in the industry, especially concerning the prices of pharmaceuticals. Cochrane supported UAEM's organization of a panel discussion and workshop as part of the Colloquium agenda. The discussion evaluated the problems we currently face in the development of pharmaceuticals, presented solutions to these problems, and underlined the responsibilities of universities and researchers with regard to these issues. The expert side of the discussion included famous names such as Katy Athersuch (MSF Access Campaign), Tim Hubbard (Human Genome Project), and Ellen ‘t Hoen (health activist)m while UAEM was represented by Thomas Deimel from UAEM Vienna. A recording of the discussion is available on UAEM Switzerland's Facebook page.

“For me it was beautiful to see how open and interested the researches, panellists, and Cochraners were towards us students and how they took our projects seriously. The conference has surely solidified my knowledge and understanding of evidence-based medicine, and has inspired a new interest in systematic reviews,” said Elina Christes, a Swiss medical student.

Additionally, the UAEM project Report Card was presented at a workshop, along with an open discussion for further input and suggestions. The Report Card is a document designed to enable universities to measure their efforts and contributions toward improved global health. More information is available at www.globalhealthgrades.org. Hascic  concluded, “Both UAEM events were well attended and enjoyed by participants. We hope that we can count on the support of the Cochrane researches and are looking forward to the possibilities that these relationships could present to us!”

Registration for the 24^th Cochrane Colloquium is open – with reduced fees for full-time students! It will take place in Seoul Korea, 23-27 October.

Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Canada. Cochrane Canada’s Knowledge Broker, Eileen Vilis, shares more about her recent presentation to students and offers tips to other Cochrane groups. 

Cochrane Canada was again invited to speak to the dental hygiene students and staff at the Canadian National Institute of Health in Ottawa about Cochrane and its many resources. When the students were polled at the beginning of the session, most of the thirty-three dental hygiene students had not heard about or used Cochrane Reviews or resources. Although they would learn about Cochrane Reviews later in their research course, their clinical coordinator believed hearing about Cochrane resources from a Cochrane Canada staff member was an excellent opportunity to understand how research could be used in dental hygiene practice.

The students were given the chance to learn about Cochrane, its resources, and how they could use this high-quality healthcare evidence. Included in the presentation were: what Cochrane is, why systematic reviews are important, and the types of questions Cochrane Reviews answer. A variety of Cochrane Review examples specific to dental health care were used throughout, demonstrating where to find and how to use Cochrane Reviews.

By the end of the session, another poll of the students indicated that they now understood the variety of resources Cochrane offered and which resources they would use most frequently.

Given our experience, here are some top tips to help your Cochrane group speak to students:
 

1.   Guest speakers are welcome: professors/instructors are often happy to have a guest speaker present, and students enjoy the experience too. Speak to relevant professors/instructors or department heads about the possibility.

2.     Give some background: you may be the first exposure to Cochrane evidence for the students. It’s good to give some background on what Cochrane is and why we do what we do; a slide on the components of evidence-based practice (research information, clinical experience and patient values, preferences and needs); why evidence may not be used by practitioners and consumers; what systematic reviews are, why they are important, and what types of questions are answered by Cochrane Reviews.

3.   Use relevant and/or interesting examples: providing examples based on a relevant study area or health questions encountered by most people in daily life increases the chances of the information sticking - such as  “Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise”, “Vitamin C for colds”. Use at least one Cochrane Review with a positive outcome such as “Powered versus manual toothbrushing”, “Pilates for low back pain”, “Acupuncture for tension-type headaches”.

4.  Take your audience on a tour of where to find and how to use available Cochrane resources: the Cochrane website (including latest Cochrane evidence, Top 10, Our evidence, How to search, and Podcasts) and the Cochrane Library (learn about, sign up for, and search; Special Collections and Cochrane Journal Club). Other local websites and resources can be featured, such as related Centre or Review Group websites, training and events, and Cochrane external newsletter.

5.  Measure your success: we conducted a short survey at the start and end of our session to see how well we met our goals, which resources the audience were most likely to use, and collect feedback for improvement.

Remember that the students you speak to have the potential to improve so many lives with using Cochrane evidence in their future practice….or could become future Cochrane authors!

Eileen Vilis
Knowledge Broker
Cochrane Canada

‘Cochrane Kompakt,’ the German translation project, is a joint effort between Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Austria, and Cochrane Switzerland. Cordula Braun, from the Department of Physiotherapy at hochschule 21 in Germany, gave a presentation on a collaboration between German physiotherapists and the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group to translate and disseminate physiotherapy-related Cochrane Reviews at the Cochrane Colloquium in Vienna, and shares their story here now.

Our team of German physiotherapists has been translating plain language summaries (PLS) of relevant new and updated Reviews in the area of physiotherapy, as well as contributing to the wider German translation project since 2014. In a joint project with the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group (BJMT), we translated 10 PLS of their Reviews. Our aim was to examine and document the translation process in order to provide feedback to the Review Group, and to enhance dissemination of the BJMT Reviews.

We translated the selected BJMT Reviews with input from a native English advisor, and involved at least two translators per PLS. We documented feedback using a form with pre-determined questions. In addition to the German version of cochrane.org, and the Cochrane Library, the translations were co-published in the largest German-language physiotherapy journal, PT – Zeitschrift für Physiotherapeuten. The translation work was funded by Cochrane BJMT.

The Feedback and audit form:

Lessons Learnt:

• Our collaboration between Review Group and a translation team of health professionals allowed translators to discuss questions about the PLS directly with the Review Group, and to give feedback on topics and potential improvements to PLS.
• It allowed us to audit our own translation process in terms of time and processes.
• It helped get findings from relevant Reviews to non-English speaking health professionals and enhanced the dissemination of their Reviews in general.

To learn more, please email cordula_braun@gmx.de

Reposted, with permission, from Cochrane Methods.

It was with deep sadness that the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group said goodbye to Andrew Herxheimer, a founding member of The Cochrane Collaboration and the Adverse Effects Methods Group.

If it had not been for Andrew, the Adverse Effects Methods Group would never have existed. Andrew was a pioneer in so many ways. His passion for patients as an important and authentic source of information was ahead of its time. There is much opportunity (and need) to learn from patients in many parts of health care, including patient safety; Andrew taught us the importance of seeking the patient voice.

Andrew was also a truly amazing man. An inspiration to many; we have all got something to thank Andrew for there. He was always helpful, and the multitude of Tweets and Facebook messages show how Andrew touched so many people's lives. Andrew was also noted by his acute perception of science and life. He was one of these rare special people who can genuinely share wisdom, and he will be sorely missed. 

The Convenors of the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group would like to thank Andrew for his dedication and commitment to the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group. Ten days before his death, he managed to meet the group in a teleconference to discuss projects and future plans.

A web page is available for people to express condolences, recount memories, and share photographs.

This is the last memory we will keep from Andrew, active, kind and interested, attending the most recent Cochrane Colloquium in Vienna (2015):  Andrew and the youngest Convenor of the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group, Daniela.

This Cochrane Blog post highlights the contributions of Professor Joan Webster; a prolific author, intrepid adventurer, and much loved mentor to many.

Cross-posted, with permission, from Cochrane Australia.

Conduct a trusty Google search on Professor Joan Webster and there among the myriad of journal articles, research papers, and academic citations, you’ll find a single tweet from a nursing student that reads: ‘It’s official. Prof Joan Webster is a guru…’

This brief pronouncement goes a long way to sum up the shared sentiments of the many students, nurses, and researchers that have worked with or been mentored by Joan over the past few decades. While she would always humbly eschew any such lofty title, her dynamic approach to research translation, patient care, and life in general makes it a fitting one. Her lively interest in learning, teaching, and international adventures with family, friends, and fellow Cochrane contributors reflects a mindset that’s all about the well-being of others. ‘You could say that my research interests are quite eclectic,’ says Joan, ‘but whatever the topic, I’m really all about patient outcomes and using evidence to change clinical practice for the better. This explains why I’m such a passionate advocate for and promoter of Cochrane, which now plays such a central role in my work.’

As Director for Nursing Research at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH), Joan is in a unique position to directly shape clinical research and contribute to its effective translation. ‘It’s a little different from working within a university or research institution,’ she explains. ‘I’m a known and trusted insider here, and I work with nurses at a really grass-roots level to identify research gaps and formulate critical research questions that we go on to answer together. It’s a role I really enjoy.’

Joan was instrumental in introducing an evidence-based practice training program at the RBWH which has proved a great success by any measure. ‘We have a really embedded culture of evidence-based practice here now, and pretty much everyone is involved with Cochrane Reviews as a result,’ says Joan. ‘You can see our nurses are really engaged and get involved every step of the way, from data collection to analysis. I get a huge amount of pleasure from mentoring and see so many nurses go on to develop the confidence and expertise to publish themselves. At certain times I see a light go on in their eyes and it’s so rewarding. I’m really like a proud mother!’ Joan laughs.

There are few better placed to mentor prospective Cochrane contributors than Joan, who over the past 15 years has authored 16 reviews and contributed to the work of seven Review Groups. In recent years, she’s found a very welcome home in the Wounds Group.

‘I met Nicky Cullum and Sally Bell-Syer at the Freiburg Colloquium in 2008,’ Joan says. ‘Before I knew it they’d convinced me to move to York to work with the Wounds Group for a few months. I duly did so and had the most rewarding professional experience of my life. I found a wonderful environment with like-minded people who shared my commitment to research and the effective use of evidence. They were a great group of people and have since become a big part of my life. We email daily, talk often, and meet up before the Cochrane Colloquium to socialise and sightsee in a different city around the globe each year. It’s a real highlight for all of us.’

Coordinating Editor of the Wounds Group Nicky Cullum is equally glad their brief meeting in Freiburg has led to such rewarding professional and personal connections. ‘We love having Joan work with us,’ she says. ‘Apart from being a fun, lovely, and inspirational person to work with, she’s very much in touch with clinical practice and is vital to our group. She’s published research in leading journals including the BMJ and the Lancet and continues to contribute so much to the development of countless other researchers. It’s really rare in nursing to find such a research leader so embedded in clinical practice.’

‘Not only is Joan a guru,’ Nicky concludes, ‘she’s also a legend. I don’t know where we’d be without her so she is not allowed to retire, ever.’ The good news for Cochrane is that with countless review updates, mentoring commitments, and international meetings/adventures on the cards, retirement looks to be completely out of the question for our resident guru Joan Webster for the foreseeable future.

Image: (from left) Sally Bell-Syer, Nicky Cullum and Joan Webster enjoying a night out.

Would your Cochrane Group like to tell the community about a beloved contributor? Email mumoquit@cochrane.org