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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Developments in the instruction of biostatistics at the Kuwait University Health Science Centre in a decade.

BACKGROUND: Kuwait has witnessed many changes that influenced, among other things, the structure of medical education including biostatistics. This article describes the developments in biostatistics instruction and curriculum in the Health Science Centre, University of Kuwait, during the past 10 years. DESCRIPTION: Instead of teaching biostatistics as an independent component, the university has developed an integrated course (35 hr of lectures and 12 hr of tutorial sessions) of biostatistics, epidemiology, and demography that is taught to undergraduate medical and dentistry students to ensure interdisciplinary interaction, to remove redundancies, and to standardize terminology across the three disciplines. The core curriculum of the biostatistics course is compatible with the recommendations of the American Statistical Association. Separate biostatistics courses are also offered to pharmacy and allied health students to address their diverse interests. In addition, new biostatistics and computer applications instruction courses were developed and are taught to the students of the Master of Science (MSc), Master of Public Health (MPH), and PhD programs. For continuing medical education, a workshop on biostatistics and computer applications is organized annually for the medical profession as a collaboration between the Health Science Centre and the Kuwait Institute for Medical Specialization. EVALUATION: The instructor and curriculum content of the biostatistics courses are confidentially evaluated and independently analyzed by the office of the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs. Overall, students evaluate the biostatistics instructors highly and are pleased with the content of the biostatistics curriculum. CONCLUSIONS: During the last decade, biostatistics instruction in the Kuwait Health Science Centre had many new developments. An integrated course on biostatistics, epidemiology, and demography was developed with emphasis on problem solving and small group learning. Another biostatistics course is offered to the students of the new faculty of pharmacy. Further biostatistics courses became operational for the postgraduate programs: (MSc), (MPH), and PhD. Continuing medical education is supported by workshops, which is a sign of collaboration with the health community, and a consultancy office has been established. Overall, biostatistics instruction is well received by students, and the role of biostatistics is recognized by researchers from the medical profession.

Biometry↗
PubMed2007

The role of education in biostatistical consulting.

Medical students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty commonly consult with biostatistical experts about study design and data analysis when conducting clinical research. The role of biostatistical training during these consultations is examined, and characterizations of the connections between biostatistical consultation and education are reviewed. The presence and kinds of teaching efforts during biostatistical consults at four academic research institutions over various periods of time between 1999 and 2005 (237 consultations in total) were recorded and are described. By site, 67, 70, 78, and 100 per cent of the consulting sessions included biostatistical training, with an overall 78 per cent (95 per cent CI: 73-83 per cent) of consultations including an educational component when all consultations were combined. Training covered a wide range of biostatistical topics. Seventy-five per cent of the consultations with faculty (120/161), 79 per cent with fellows and residents (31/39), and 100 per cent with medical students (10/10) included some degree of instruction in study design or statistical analysis topics. Results show that both the need and the opportunity exist for specialized biostatistical instruction during one-on-one sessions between a consulting biostatistician and physicians, medical students, and research staff. Academic researchers are ideally positioned to absorb this kind of training when they initiate a request for assistance with their own research project.

Biometry↗
PubMed2001

Integrating a primer course in biostatistics into the haematology practicals of first-year medical students in India.

CONTEXT: In India, biostatistics in the medical curriculum is usually taught as a separate course, using either "imaginary" data or data from the literature. Knowledge of statistics is particularly important in the context of "evidence-based medicine". OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of a biostatistics course integrated into the practical haematology first-year medical course with the following special characteristics: (1) students learn statistics on data generated by and on themselves, (2) the course avoids mathematical computation,(3)the statistical exercises are linked to the learning objectives of the physiology curriculum, and (4) the course is without the threat of university examinations. METHODS: Statistical exercises were incorporated into specific haematology practicals with the aim of covering simple descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistics tests were administered, without prior information, to 60 first-year medical students before the biostatistics course, immediately following the course, and nine months later. Fifty-four students completed all three evaluations. RESULTS: Students had a poor knowledge of statistics at baseline. They substantially increased their scores in the statistics test immediately following the biostatistics course. These scores remained higher than baseline nine months after completion of the course, although there was a small decline in the absolute scores when compared with scores soon after the biostatistics course. IMPLICATIONS: Integrating biostatistics into other subjects in the medical curriculum may be an important addition to "stand alone" courses in biostatistics.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2000

Estimating the value of an internal biostatistical consulting service.

Biostatistical consulting is a service business. Although a consulting biostatistician's goal is long-term collaborative relationships with investigators, this is the same as the long-term goal of any business: having a group of contented, satisfied customers. In this era of constrained resources, we must be able to demonstrate that the benefit a biostatistical consulting group provides to its organization exceeds its actual cost to the institution. In this paper, I provide both a theoretical framework for assessing the value of a biostatistical service and provide an ad hoc method to value the contribution of a biostatistical service to a grant. Using the methods described, our biostatistics group returns more than $6 for each dollar spent on institutional support in 1998.

Biometry↗
PubMed2006

Biostatisticians, biostatistical science and the future.

Biostatistical Science is in a 'golden period'. The definition of Biostatistical Science is the application of statistics, probability, mathematics and computing to advance our understanding of the subject matter in the biomedical sciences. Our field is experiencing unparallel developments due of the advances in communication and computing. We are becoming more global, we have resources which can expand educational opportunities for distant learning; the growth of quantitative methods in the biomedical sciences has made biostatistical science a key component in many research areas. What about the future? Are we receptive to change as many new scientific areas expand? Will the interaction between academia and industry likely to grow-especially in the training of future practitioners of biostatistical science. This paper discusses some of challenges facing our profession if we are to continue to be relevant in the biomedical sciences.

Biological Science Disciplines↗
PubMed2004

Applying a medical budget system to biostatistics clinics.

Biostatistics are indispensable in clinical medicine because doctors increasingly need to publish and understand medical articles that use statistical methods. An opportunity is needed for medical doctors to interact with biostatisticians on statistical issues. This paper's objective is to determine how much it costs to establish a biostatistics clinic and what revenue is required to run the clinic. A balance sheet was used to outline the revenue and expenses of a statistics clinic using a simple method introduced by the author. Expenses for personnel, material, and tenancy costs were 41.9, 18.1, and 25.1% of the total, respectively. To run, the biostatistics clinic required 200 research design engagements, 1200 h of hourly consultation, and 6600 h of data processing. To acquire scientific grants, each of four biostatisticians had to write one academic paper annually. The results show that a biostatistics clinic could be managed profitably based on the assumptions in this study.

Biometry↗
PubMed1975

An inventory of biostatistics teaching in American and Canadian Medical Schools.

During the academic year 1969-70 a detailed inventory was conducted of biostatistics teaching in American and Canadian medical schools. Approximately two-thirds of schools required a separate, distinct biostatistics course. This report describes these courses, their content, and the characteristics of the individuals who taught the courses and their perception of the medical student's reaction to biostatistics. A more recent survey covering the academic year 1973-74 revealed that the situation had not changed; slightly more than two-thirds of respondents indicated that exposure to biostatistics was required in their schools' curricula.

Attitude↗
PubMed1980

An assessment of physician knowledge of epidemiology and biostatistics.

A review was conducted of 585 articles in the medical literature, and the articles were categorized by study design and by statistical techniques employed. In the majority, statistics were utilized primarily for data description and hypothesis-testing. Descriptive studies were most frequent, and only a minority were epidemiological investigations. A questionnaire designed to assess knowledge of biostatistics and epidemiology relevant to this literature was administered to internists and medical house staff at a teaching hospital. Of 229 questionnaire recipients, 141 responded and achieved a mean score of 7.4 with 10.0 possible. Practicing physicians had a significantly lower mean score than house staff and full-time faculty. Scores were higher for the 44 percent of respondents who reported prior training in epidemiology or in biostatistics. The results of the journal review suggest that knowledge of basic biostatistics and of study design is important for reading medical literature. Physicians with prior training in epidemiology and in biostatistics appear to be better prepared for this task.

Biometry↗
PubMed2004

[Biostatistics contribution to the development of biomedical sciences].

Biostatistics can be defined as the science of data reduction methods, variability and populations, in the field of medicine and biomedical science. Its origins trace back to the work of Quetelet (1796-1874) and more recently of Fisher (1890-1962). Following the technological advances in biomedical sciences during the 20th century, modern biostatistics is facing the formidable challenge of translating information into knowledge. Biostatistics has significantly contributed to the development of biomedical sciences in many areas: laboratory medicine (reference values and quality control), randomized clinical trials (RCT), clinical decision-making, new drugs development. The explosion of scientific research over the past decades, however, has led to misuse and abuse of statistical methods. Common sense should therefore always prevail. In sum, biostatistics, an amalgalm of mathematics, logic and judgment, has given the quantitative and factual dimension that the evolution of biomedical sciences required.

Biomedical Technology↗
PubMed1990

Some comments on teaching biostatistics in medical and health sciences.

The role of statistical methods is now well recognized in health sciences since these disciplines are concerned with the study of communities or populations where the principles of sampling and statistical inference are clearly applicable. However, many medical and health sciences teachers and students have been slower to perceive the need for knowledge of biostatistical methods, even though all aspects of medical diagnosis and prognosis are governed by the laws of probability. Some of them are still skeptical about the value and importance of biostatistical principles to their fields and raise questions about the meaning, content, and nature of biostatistics and relevance of its teaching to health sciences disciplines. The purpose of this essay is to address some of these issues with the hope to invoke comments and responses from other biostatistics instructors who have encountered similar predicaments in their teaching and consulting roles to health sciences students and professionals.

Biometry↗
PubMed1983

Biostatistical science as a discipline: a look into the future.

The field of biostatistics is enjoying unparalleled developments. Never before have members of our profession been in such demand. Current applications are significantly influencing the direction of research in statistical methodology. It is not clear whether there is a discipline which can be termed 'biostatistics', but we are part of the emergence of a discipline which is termed 'biostatistical science'. It refers to the applications of statistics, probability, computing and mathematics to the life sciences, with the goal of advancing our knowledge of a subject-matter field in this area. This paper discusses the role of computing, some aspects of training, and future directions of biostatistical science. A special role is envisioned for the Biometric Society to be more active in problems associated with developing countries.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

[Profile of biostatistics utilization in three medical reviews. Implications for medical education].

OBJECTIVE: To identify the most commonly used biostatistical concepts and tests in three journals read by family physicians. DESIGN: Descriptive study of the biostatistical content of 12 issues of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), Canadian Family Physician (CFP), and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency of citations of concepts and tests, and Spearman's correlation coefficients comparing the biostatistical profiles of the three journals. RESULTS: Biostatistical content of NEJM was diverse (on average, 39 concepts and 21 tests per issue). In CFP, we found 10 concepts and four tests per issue. In CMAJ, there were, on average, nine concepts and five tests per issue. CONCLUSIONS: The journals' profiles (order of importance of concepts and tests) were fairly similar.

Family Practice↗