Training

We can provide customised training for your organization, or you may like to select a course available from our partner, ARCS Australia.

Biostatistics training

“Making Sense of Statistics” is a 2-day course offered through ARCS Australia.
This course is designed for those with very little statistical knowledge, but who are required to have an understanding of statistics for their job. This may include those employed in areas such as clinical research, regulatory affairs, health economics, medical writing, medical affairs and sales. Academic researchers would also find the course beneficial.
Statistics should be fun. Too often, statisticians get bogged down in Greek letters, and forget that what statistics is really about is making sense of the world around them. From a healthcare perspective, most employees just need to understand the appropriate use of statistics – rather than how to perform the statistical test per se. This course is designed to cover the topics in a fun and interactive way that allows attendees to read a clinical paper, a clinical protocol, a PBAC or TGA submission and critically appraise the statistical elements.
Each module includes an experiment and a case study from the medical literature.
Topics covered include:
• What is statistics?
• Types of data
• Summary statistics and presenting data
• Types of studies
• Hazard rates, odds ratios, relative risks
• What is the question? Studies designed for superiority, equivalence and non-inferiority
• Hypothesis testing
• Survival-analysis
• Critical appraisal
• Meta-analysis
• Analysis plans

Medical writing training

“A brief guide to medical writing” is a half-day workshop, tailored to your organisation’s needs. Typically, it covers what medical writing is, plain English, targeting your audience, writing for health professionals, writing for patients and reviewing the evidence. It is designed for those working in both academia and industry.

“Writing for patients” is a more in-depth look at writing for patients, than covered in the “Brief guide to medical writing”. The 2-hour training course covering message choice, media choice, writing a good brief, what to look for when reviewing, plain English, referencing, and tools to assist in writing. This seminar is targeted at those employed in areas such as clinical research, marketing, medical education, sales and academia.

This course is designed to give participants the basic skills to write and review materials designed for patients.

“Critical Appraisal” is a three-hour workshop, currently offered through ARCS Australia. This seminar is targeted at those employed in areas such as clinical research, regulatory affairs, health economics, medical writing, medical affairs and sales. No recent experience with critical appraisal or reading clinical papers is required.

This seminar is designed to give participants the basic skills and knowledge to understand why critical appraisal is important, and how to systematically apply critical appraisal skills to their every-day working life.

Critical appraisal is an important skill for all employees involved in clinical research, medical affairs, regulatory affairs, health economics or marketing functions. All employees must be able to understand and critique the scientific (and other) literature in order to make appropriate judgments about the weight of scientific evidence. This is the very basis of the evidence based medicine framework in which we practice. We need to apply some judgment on which papers to spend time on and which to discard immediately – we should be able to quickly identify papers from literature that are important, and which ones are irrelevant.