Introducing the virtual European Journal of Plastic Surgery Journal Club.

The first medical journal club was organized by Sir William Osler at McGill University in 1875.[1] It’s primary purpose was to foster clinical appraisal of published scientific articles, ensuring further understanding and dissemination of new findings and innovations in medicine. Since then journal clubs have developed as a powerful educational tool, which prior to COVID were still usually held in person within the walls of a hospital. As we adapt to the ‘new normal’ way of life during and after the COVID-19 pandemic [2], the European Journal of Plastic Surgery (EJPS) teamed up with the Plastic Surgery Association of Trainees of the United Kingdom (PLASTA-UK) and the International Confederation of Plastic Surgery Societies (ICOPLAST) to launch the first EJPS Virtual Journal Club.

This is an exciting new educational platform to promote the development of critical appraisal skills and international collaboration among fellows and trainees. We hope that plastic surgeons from anywhere around the world will be able to join, both in the live setting as a webinar and also on-demand as an audio podcast available on the main podcast social media channels on phone and computer.

Our aim is to facilitate access to this education and critical appraisal in an innovative way. We invite the authors of the article to provide unique insights into their work and reflection on their learning points. We also invite independent international experts in the specific topic of the article being discussed to explore this in more detail and offer new ideas to the discussion. They also provide advice to the trainees listening on how to develop their own research and clinical practice in the field. The chosen article is always an open access article from the current issue of EJPS, which is available for all to download and learn from.

The first edition of the EJPS Journal Club, actively promoted on social media (Fig.1), was held in June 2020 and will continue on a bimonthly basis. For this inaugural edition, we chose a very interesting study on the cost effectiveness of facial composite tissue allotransplantation in Europe by authors Tiffanie-Marie Borg, Seema Yalamanchili, Shadi Ghali, Simon Myers, Simon Holmes & Ali Ghanem from the United Kingdom [3]. The article was summarized and appraised by Dr. Laura Burlage from Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, The Netherlands), with additional insights and comments provided by our guest senior author Mr. Ali Gahnem (Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom). We also had the honour of being joined by our guest international expert, Dr. Bohdan Pomahac from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA), who offered an enriching and insightful discussion based on his personal experience of performing facial VCA (vascularized composite allotransplantation) and ongoing research into the key factors to developing a successful VCA programme internationally (Fig.2).

Fig. 1

The electronic flyer designed by PLASTA-UK to promote our first EJPS Journal Club

Fig. 2

A screen capture of our first EJPS Journal Club. Clockwise: Mr. Dimitris Reissis, Mr. Graeme Perks, Dr. Laura Burlage, Dr. Horacio F. Mayer, Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, and Mr. Ali Gahnem

This first edition was deemed a true success with over 200 registrants from all over the world and many listens and downloads on media platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Please search ‘EJPS Journal Club’ on your chosen podcasts media platform to listen to this and upcoming episodes. Please also follow @EJPS, @PLASTAUK and @ICOPLAST on social media to keep up to date with upcoming EJPS Journal Club episodes virtually. We look forward to seeing you online during our next episode!