Following some of the conversations that came out the #SocialPT talk I gave at CSM 2017 with Ben Fung, Greg Todd and Brett Kestenbaum, (video via UpDoc Media), I felt it would be useful to create a resource to help students and clinicians stay up to date with the evidence. As an emerging researcher and academic, I am passionate about serving this profession as both a purveyor and guide of knowledge to help inform the care provided in our communities. No more ivory towers and no more “knowledge obscura”. We are all our profession’s keeper and the better informed we all are individually, the better off our profession will be collectively. In the list below, I have provided 10 easy tips to help clinicians and students stay current through a variety of different methods, many of which only require a small addition to a typical day. 90% of them are completely free and 100% are of no additional cost for APTA members. Choose one or choose all 10!

1) Use the APTA PTNow website ($)

PT Now is a resource designed for APTA members which provides summary findings on clinical questions, access to clinical practice guidelines, validated outcome measures and an article search function. Also be sure to check out the APTA PT Outcomes Registry. This project will allow clinicians to participate in the research process by contributing outcomes data to a national registry. The data from this project will be instrumental in advancing care for our patients and creating leverage with legislators and policy makers.

2) Create a PubMed MyNCBI account and create saved searches (free)

This will allows users to track research topics, questions or relationships that interest them. Users can then schedule email reminders on these topics as new papers are published. Though these are only abstracts, it’s a good start and often once the PubMed link is obtained most people have an easier time finding the manuscript. There are also many articles available through PubMed Central, a database designed to host biomedical information free to the public. I have included a YouTube video of how to set up a MyNCBI account and saved searches as well as a step by step instruction with pictures.

YouTube Demo

How to set up “saved searches”

3) Push notifications” from Journal Twitter accounts

This will push notifications to your phone whenever the Twitter account for a selected journal posts. Many  of these Twitter accounts also have public “lists” of journals, clinicians and researchers they follow which may help structure your search, as an examples the Cardiopulmonary Section’s Twitter Account has two (one cardiac and one pulmonary/critical care). I have included a step by step instruction with pictures for both.

How to “Push Notifications on Twitter”

How to subscribe to a “list” on a Twitter account

4) Subscribe YouTube channels and Podcasts (free)

These platforms provide synthesized content on research or clinical topics. The content on podcasts will generally be audio only and Youtube Channels will usually use both visual and audio. These resources are great since they can be listened to while doing something else, such as the ride to and from work or while exercising. Podcasts are particularly great because if users have the podcast app for iTunes, updates to podcasts they subscribe to are automatically pushed to their phone. I have compiled a good list of YouTube Channels and Podcasts for physical therapists here but be sure to perform your own search to find channels or podcasts that interest you. A few of the YouTube channels I subscribe to are the New England Journal of Medicine, British Journal of Sports Medicine and Heart by the British Medical Journal. Also don’t forget to check out the Cardiopulmonary Physical Therapy Journal Podcast!

5) Register/Subscribe to a journal email list (free)

This allows users to receive an updates on new publications and papers published ahead of print. I have provided a step by step example for how to do it through the New England Journal of Medicine, a journal that also often publishes open access (free) manuscripts.

How to “Register/Subscribe to a journal email list”

6) Follow Facebook pages for journals (free)

This tip is similar to “pushing notifications” for twitter. However, an advantage of doing this through Facebook is that more people both have Facebook accounts and check them daily than Twitter. One of the easiest ways to keep up to date with the evidence is make it a component of your daily life.

How to “Push Notifications on For a Facebook Page”

7) Follow individual researchers (free)

Many researchers have social media accounts and a large portion of them are fairly active, especially on Twitter I actually made a list of some of these accounts worth checking out. Users can also, “push notifications” from their accounts too! I would also recommend signing up for researchgate, this site is increasingly being used by both researchers and clinicians alike. On this site many researchers provide full texts of their papers that can be downloaded, usually 1 year post publication. Users can also request papers from researchers that aren’t publicly available yet on researchgate.

8) Join in the discussions on twitter (free)

To join in these discussions follow hashtags such as #solvePT or #BackPain. To be more specific, I would also recommend using Symplur , a free healthcare hashtag aggregator to help find topics that interest you and even monthly twitter journal clubs such as BMJ Heart’s “Heart Journal Club” #HeartJC .

9) Join in discussions on Facebook groups (free)

One of the best ways to stay informed is to regularly participate in professional discourse. This allows clinicians to appreciate different perspectives from colleagues and to have their biases potentially challenged. Even if you don’t participate, observing some of the discussions from a distance can be useful too! Doctor of Physical Therapy Students or Physical Therapy Practice Education and Networking are two of the largest and most active groups. These groups are also great for asking questions and sharing information.

10) Create a system to manage your citations (free)

As you begin to accumulate resources, especially published work it is important to keep track of them in an organized fashion. This allows you to quickly reference papers and to search for them later. I use Mendeley and Google Drive; both are free to use and excellent software solutions! Mendeley also offers a google chrome extension that allows me to cite resources as I browse. Google Drive has a desktop app that allows me to save files locally on my hard-drive while also continuously and simultaneously pushing files to a cloud based folder which can be accessed anywhere with internet access; even on my phone with the Google Drive App.

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I hope these quick tips will provide a better infrastructure for both finding research papers and regularly consuming evidence. If we are all individually more up to date with the scientific literature, better informed decisions can be made for the people and communities we serve!