The Unofficial Guide to First Year - University of Oklahoma Health ...

UNOFFICIAL GUIDE
Quizzes are relatively straightforward. Make sure you pay attention to where the
survey was conducted (i.e. a university in Switzerland), who funded the survey (i.e.
the NIH or Merck), and to the most important numerical statistics (i.e. Specificity,
Likelihood Ratio, Number Needed to Harm).
Small Group Appraisals make up a bulk of the grade for the class. You will be in
your IMPS groups of four people. For each type of article, a “Cheat Sheet” that is
posted online amounts to the form with all the questions you will have to fill out for
the Group Appraisal. You will usually have 45 minutes to an hour to work in your
groups and fill out the questionnaire that has questions focused on the specific
article you were just quizzed on. Make sure you cite the page number where you got
the answer. In addition, none of the professors are very clear about what they want
in the proverbial blank, so make sure you not only state what the answer is but also
why you thought it. Grading focuses on the reasoning you used rather than a
specific “correct” answer. If you’re confused, go down and ask the professor and
they’ll tell you the gist. A simple “Yes.” or just writing a numerical value is rarely if
ever good enough for full credit. The nice part is that the professors are generally
lenient with the grading but make sure at least one person in your group is
productive the night before and can all but go in and copy the cheat sheet over to
the Small Group Appraisal Form.
EXAM:
The exam is 50 questions and comes during the second test block, which is the roughest
week of the year. You’ll be glad for the break and this day can be either a night relatively
off or one where you study more for Phys. Some of the questions can be ambiguous but
as long as you go through the specific PowerPoints for each type of article, you will do
just fine. More than 80% of the class got an A or a B on the exam.
PROFESSORS:
Dr. Rhett Jackson: Dr. Jackson discussed articles on therapy. He focuses on the
calculations that determine whether a particular treatment is beneficial or detrimental to
a particular patient. There are three different calculations that you need to know that
are called different things based on whether it’s benefiting or harming the patient, but
the number crunching is all the same (ARR, RRR, and NNT). He focuses on outcomes
and method than strictly the numbers; in other words, make sure your answers are very
thorough for the Group Appraisals because he tends to grade the hardest.
Dr. Mary Zoë Baker: Dr. Baker presents information on articles about harm. She uses
the same calculations that Dr. Jackson will have already covered, but she also emphasizes
which types of trial carry more weight; know the difference between randomized control
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