Key facts

Overview

The aim of this module is to critically appraise and apply, at an advanced level, the best evidence on diagnostic tests. This will briefly revise then extend material on diagnostics from the introductory modules. The module will be led by Dr Annette Pluddemann, Director of the Horizon Scanning Programme at the University of Oxford.

Description

Basic Diagnostics

• understand and be able to extract measures of test accuracy
• understand the concepts of sensitivity, specificity, repeatability and predictive values
• calculate sensitivity, specificity, prevalence and predictive values
• calculate and apply Likelihood Ratios
• Advanced Diagnostics

• understand the context of diagnostic processes, and the limitations and biases of clinical reasoning
• critically appraise articles assessing the validity and repeatability a screening or diagnostic test, including understanding the importance of:
  • Independent, blind reference standard
  • Spectrum of patients
  • Verification bias
• understand and interpret ROC curves
• calculate and apply Likelihood Ratios with more than two outcome values
• understand the concepts and importance of the following issues when conducting a critical appraisal of a systematic review for a screening or diagnostic test:
  • Inclusion/exclusion criteria
  • Implicit / explicit thresholds
  • Applicability of screening
• gain insight into aspects of commissioning diagnostic services
• understand the diagnostic pathway and the role of different tests, including monitoring and screening
• understand the implications of combined tests, including the use and construction of clinical prediction rules

Staff

Dr Clare Bankhead

Role: Tutor

Clare Bankhead is a systematic reviewer and epidemiologist with expertise in monitoring and diagnosis. She has a DPhil in diagnosis of ovarian...more cancer, which utilised both quantitative and qualitative research methods, an MSc in Epidemiology and a BSc in Physiology. Her main research interests lie in chronic disease monitoring, cancer diagnosis and subsequent monitoring and interventions to improve health related behaviours. close

Dr Amanda Burls

Role: Tutor

Amanda Burls is a public health physician. She is Director of Postgraduate Programmes in Evidence-Based HealthCare (EBHC) at the University of...more Oxford, and a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (www.cebm.net). She is Director of the Oxford International Programme in Evidence-Base Health Care which includes a Masters and DPhil programme in EBHC (http://cpd.conted.ox.ac.uk/ebhc/msc.asp). In her research role as a Senior Clinical Research Fellow, in the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, she undertakes e-health research and internet trials. She set up and directs a novel internet-based research programme, the International Network for Knowledge about Wellbeing (ThinkWell), that aims to help the public (a) understand health information so they can make their own health decisions and (b) set up and participate in research studies.

Previously Amanda was a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Public Health and Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Birmingham where she founded the West Midlands Health Technology Assessment Collaboration (WMHTAC) for twelve years. WMHTAC is an NHS-funded unit that undertakes systematic reviews, research synthesis and economic evaluations of health technologies for the West Midlands regional and the UK national level NHS (e.g. for the NCCHTA programme and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)).

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Dr Carl Heneghan

Role: Tutor

Carl Heneghan is a Reader in Evidence-Based Medicine, Director of the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine and a General Practitioner. He has had an...more association with the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine since 1995. He currently is a Walport Clinical Lecturer having previously held a NCCRD Research Development Fellowship. His research projects involve cardiovascular disease, self-monitoring in chronic diseases, and determining the evidence base for treatment of infections.

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Dr Susan Mallett

Role: Tutor

Sue Mallett is a medical statistician specialising for 8 years in research methodology, design and analysis of diagnostic accuracy and prognostic...more studies. As a Senior Statistician for the EBHC MSc and DPhil courses at Oxford University, she teaches on several of the courses and acts as a focus for statistical input. She has co-authored a chapter in the Cochrane Diagnostics Reviewers' Handbook, a guide on how to conduct diagnostic systematic reviews. Sue is a member of the Steering group for QUADAS2, a risk of bias tool being developed for diagnostic accuracy studies, an update of the diagnostic accuracy quality checklist QUADAS. Sue is a co-applicant on two major NIHR grants relating to the performance of CT colonography imaging in diagnosis and the prognosis role of CT perfusion imaging in prediction of metastasis in colorectal cancer. She has a BA in Biochemistry and a DPhil in molecular immunology from Oxford, and a Diploma in Statistics. Other previous areas of research included immunology, virology, and infectious disease epidemiology.

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Dr Annette Pluddemann

Role: Tutor

Annette Plüddemann is the Director of the Horizon Scanning Programme in the Oxford Centre for Monitoring and Diagnosis at the Oxford University...more Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. Her research focuses on identifying innovations in diagnostic technologies likely to have a significant impact in primary care, assessing the evidence base and disseminating this information to NHS bodies, such as the Health Technology Assessment Programme and the NICE Diagnostics Assessment Programme. She also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students at Oxford University and is a tutor for the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine.

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Prof Christopher P Price

Role: Tutor

Chris Price is Visiting Professor in Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, and a member of the Horizon Scanning group in the...more Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford. Previous to this he was Professor in Clinical Biochemistry at the St Bartholomew’s and Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Director of Pathology at the associated teaching hospital. His main interests are in Evidence-Based Laboratory Medicine, and in Pont-of-Care Testing and disruptive innovation in health care.

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Ms Nia Wyn Roberts

Role: Tutor

Nia Roberts is an information specialist and outreach librarian working with clinical staff, students and researchers in cancer services, public...more health and primary care. She has experience of teaching information skills within Evidence-Based Medicine programmes and regularly contributes to preparing systematic reviews.

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Dr Richard Stevens

Role: Tutor

Richard Stevens is the Deputy Director of the Statistics in Primary Care Group and has been working as a medical statistician in Oxford since...more 1997. He has previously worked on diabetes and cardiovascular disease at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and on pancreatic cancer at the Cancer Epidemiology Unit in Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Medicine.

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Dr Matthew Thompson

Role: Tutor

Matthew Thompson is a GP and Clinical Lecturer and has extensive experience in primary care research, particularly in the areas of infectious...more disease, paediatrics, and diagnostics. He is Co-Director of the Oxford Centre for Monitoring and Diagnosis, a nationally-funded initiative at improving diagnostic strategies used for a variety of acute and chronic conditions in primary care, and coordinates a European initiative to improve recognition of serious infection in children in emergency departments and primary care.

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Assessment methods

Accommodation

Accommodation is available at the Rewley House Residential Centre, within the Department for Continuing Education, in central Oxford. The comfortable, en-suite, study-bedrooms are rated 3-star, and come with free high-speed internet access and TV. Guests can take advantage of the excellent dining facilities and common room bar, where they may relax and network with others on the programme.

Scholarships

Details of funding opportunities, including grants, bursaries, loans, scholarships and benefit information are available on our financial assistance page.

Fee options

Programme Fee

For students enrolled on the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care: £1450.00

Stand-alone short course fee: £1790.00

Apply for this course

Programmes including this module

This module can be studied as part of these programmes:

• MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care
• Postgraduate Diploma in Health Research
• Short courses in health sciences