Many of SMDM members belong to one or more of the following
interest groups (also note that you can join our general
listserv or read the discussion
board for information of interest to all members).
Clinical Research Integrity Interest Group
Rational medical decision making requires high quality,
unbiased evidence about benefits and harms of clinical
interventions. The Clinical Research Integrity Interest
Group is focused on defending the integrity of the clinical
evidence data base. There is increasing evidence that
clinical research and its dissemination may be subject
to manipulation or outright suppression. Furthermore,
people attempting to blow the whistle on these practices
have been subject to intimidation and coercion. Those
responsible often are protecting their vested economic,
political, or ideologic interests. The Clinical Research
Integrity Interest Group will attempt to better define
these problems through research, and better disseminate
information about threats to clinical research integrity.
Finally, we hope to develop tools to detect manipulated
or suppressed research, educational programs about the
problem, and policy approaches to discourage further manipulation
or suppression. For more information, contact Roy
Poses, MD .
Decision Psychology Interest
Group
The goal of the Decision Psychology Interest Group is
to design empirical approaches for addressing three
questions: What are the relevant values in medical decision
making from both a physician and patient perspective?
How can we measure these values in the complex and dynamic
psychological environment that defines medicine? And
how can we incorporate these values meaningfully into
the decision making process in order to lead to choices
which are both more informed and consistent with important
values? The group welcomes members who wish to examine
the psychological context of medical decision making
and the application of decision psychology to improve
the quality of medical decisions. For more information,
contact Julie Goldberg,
PhD.
Medical Informatics
The Medical Informatics Interest Group is a forum for
SMDM members to discuss the development and evaluation
of decision support tools and other computer applications
to promote the use of evidence-based medicine. For more
information, contact Holly
Jimison, PhD . To subscribe to the smdm-info interest
group go to http://lists.smdm.org/mailman/listinfo/smdm-info
Disaster Simulation Modeling
Interest Group
The goal of the Disaster Simulation Modeling Interest
Group is to bring together people working on various
aspects of public health, disaster, and medical emergency
responses to compare and share modeling approaches,
results, and funding opportunities. Our members work
on a variety of disaster scenarios (bioterrorism, natural
outbreaks of infectious disease, other natural disasters
such as earthquakes), take an assortment of perspectives
(that of community dwellers, hospitals and health care
providers, public health and emergency response professionals),
focus on a number of critical processes (patient flow,
logistics, critical pathways) and use a variety of methodologies
(discrete event simulation, steady-state modeling, cost-benefit
analyses). Members' work is designed to inform local,
state, and federal disaster preparedness and response
efforts. We welcome anyone interested in joining this
growing branch of decision making research. For more
information, contact: Nathaniel
Hupert, MD, MPH
Teaching MDM
The Teaching MDM Interest Group promotes collaboration
in the development of educational materials, curricular
resources, and instructional methods for teaching medical
decision making to health care professionals, patients,
and policy makers.
Some of the specific goals of the group include:
- Collection of an extensive and diverse set of member-developed
teaching materials, exercises, syllabi, and notes
for dissemination to other educators.
- Development and maintenance of an outline of "standard
topics" for typical MDM courses.
- Providing a forum for members to obtain feedback
on newly developed courses or materials.
- Contribution of articles on teaching MDM for the
Society's journal and/or newsletter.
- Collaboration in educational research on strategies
for teaching MDM and evidence-based medicine.
The continued existence and growth of the field of
medical decision making depends on its ability to
train new MDM researchers and to propagate the concepts
of MDM to health care professionals, patients, and
policy makers. Because MDM is highly multidisciplinary
in theory and practice, those who teach MDM need access
to a broad range of resources and a diverse network
of fellow educators.
For further information, contact Alan Schwartz, PhD
at alansz@uic.edu.
Pharmacoeconomics
The pharmacoeconomics interest group is a forum for
SMDM members from academia, industry and government
to discuss issues involving methodology, education,
research applications and career opportunities. One
area of particular interest is the international evaluation
of new drugs. For more information, contact Kevin
Frick, PhD. To subscribe to the smdm-pharma interest
group go to http://lists.smdm.org/mailman/listinfo/smdm-pharma
Discrete Event Simulation
Discrete event simulation is a methodology for modeling
systems in which entities compete for limited respurces
and where a stochastic element is important. The modeling
and approach testing approaches are analogous to those
used in decision analysis and modern desktop software
to make such models feasible and relatively user friendly.
It is most useful in understanding problems that are
intractable by analytic methods, in which systems are
dynamic and in which changes over time are important.
For more information contact James
Stahl, MD, MPH. To subscribe to the smdm-des interest
group go to http://lists.smdm.org/mailman/listinfo/smdm-des
Ethics Research Interest
Group
The ethics research interest group will provide a forum
for promoting the use of decision science methods in
empirical ethics research and for examining the ethical
implications of decision-analysis and cost-effectiveness
methodologies. The group welcomes the involvement of
members who may not identify themselves as ethics researchers
but who wish to further examine the ethical dimensions
and uses of decision-making research and its methods.
The group will be coordinated by Scott Kim and Peter
Ubel. For further information, contact Scott
Kim, MD, PhD and Kevin
Weinfurt, PhD
Shared Decision Making
Interest Group
The Shared Decision Making Interest Group includes clinicians,
methodologists, and policy makers who are interested
in developing and evaluating techniques to help patients
participate in decisions about their care. The Interest
Group provides a forum to discuss practical and theoretical
challenges in the presentation of medical information
and the elicitation of choices. Members of this group
have participated in International Patient Decision
Aids Standards (IPDAS) project. For further information,
contact Deb Feldman-Stewart, PhD (Deb.Feldman-Stewart@krcc.on.ca)
or Jim Dolan, MD (jdolan@unityhealth.org).
Infectious Disease Modeling
Interest Group
There is growing interest among public health and public
policy decision makers for help with evaluating strategies
for vaccination, primary prevention, screening etc.
- many of which require dynamic modeling strategies.
The Infectious Disease Modeling Interest Group will
have a broad focus in infectious disease modeling encompassing
all areas of infectious diseases ranging from directly
transmitted infections (contact, airborne) to sexually
transmitted infections and vector-borne infections.
This Interest Group will bring together SMDM members
with an interest and/or expertise in infectious disease
modeling, particularly in dynamic disease modeling to
provide opportunities for intellectual exchange, research
collaboration, and networking.
The group will establish a network of researchers with
interest in infectious disease modeling to
- discuss the similarities and differences between
infectious disease modeling and decision analytic
modeling,
- explore the use of dynamic infectious models to
evaluate disease intervention programs, develop immunization
guidelines, and inform health care decision making,
- facilitate the further development of dynamic modeling
techniques particularly for the purpose of health
care decision making,
- bring together epidemiologists/public health experts
and dynamic modelers for the purpose of collecting
data that can be used to parameterize dynamic models
- promote the importance and use of dynamic modeling
techniques to a wider audience
- develop a portfolio of training materials in dynamic
infectious disease modeling
For more information, contact Beate Sander, RN, MBA.
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