ScholarRounds is designed for medical students, residents, fellows, clinicians, and research teams who need a practical way to move projects forward. The goal is not to replace methodological or specialty expertise, but to make the next decisions explicit and easier to execute.
Define time zero
Many retrospective studies become difficult to interpret because exposure, eligibility, and outcome windows are not anchored to the same starting point. Specify when follow-up begins and make sure covariates are measured before the outcome they are intended to predict.
Separate exposure, outcome, and confounders
A variable should have a role in the causal question. Avoid adding every available chart variable into a model. Identify which factors plausibly affect both the exposure and outcome, which variables may mediate the effect, and which are consequences of the outcome.
Choose one primary outcome
Multiple endpoints are useful, but a project is easier to design and interpret when one outcome is clearly primary. Define how it is measured, over what interval, and what constitutes success or failure before examining results.
Plan missing data before analysis
Document why values may be missing, whether missingness differs by group, and how missing variables will be handled. Complete-case analysis can change the study population in ways that introduce bias.