As clinicians working in the NHS, we’re generally used to following guidelines when managing conditions – for example hypertension. Evidence-based practice (or medical statistics) is about looking a step beyond guidelines to the initial research and deciding whether the findings are a/ relevant to your patient group and b/ significant enough to change your practice.
For the purposes of the AKT, you need to have an understanding of the key terms used in medical statistics and be able to analyse information to determine the significance of research. This is typically tested by being presented with a set of data (in a table or graph) and then asked to draw conclusions.
A three-step approach can be helpful for this:
- Learn the key terms listed on the RCGP Curriculum through using a medical statistics textbook (such as Medical Statistics Made Easy) or courses/webinars (such as the RCGP course).
- Practice analysing research by completing statistics-focussed practice questions, which are available on the RCGP GPSelfTest website.
- Maintain your knowledge and try applying it to new research – this can be done by setting aside 5-10 minutes each week to read a research article of your choice, potentially from The BMJ (which you can access for free with an OpenAthens account, available via your hospital library). Try focussing on the abstract and any tables or graphs presented. Using the knowledge you have developed from steps 1 and 2, what conclusions can you draw from the article?
One of the most commonly given reasons for why people struggle with the statistics part of the AKT is not feeling familiar with the way the data is presented. By using the above approach, you can gain familiarity with medical statistics and this can help you succeed at this part of the exam.