nejm-study-design
Use to confirm study-design rigor and the mandatory prospective trial registration, protocol, and statistical analysis plan before writing up a clinical study for NEJM. Surfaces registration problems early — they cannot be fixed retroactively.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill nejm-study-design --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Study Design & Registration (nejm-study-design) ## When to trigger - A trial is being written up and you must confirm it was registered **before enrollment**. - There is no finalized protocol or statistical analysis plan to submit. - The design (randomization, blinding, endpoints) needs to be stated rigorously for the Methods. - An observational study needs its design (cohort / case-control / cross-sectional) named and justified. ## The non-negotiable: prospective trial registration Per **ICMJE** policy (which NEJM enforces), a clinical trial must be **prospectively registered** in a public registry — **ClinicalTrials.gov** or a **WHO ICTRP** primary registry — **before the first patient is enrolled**. This is a deal-breaker, not a formatting detail. - The **trial registration number** (e.g., an NCT number) is reported in the abstract and Methods. - Registration must predate enrollment; retrospective registration is generally disqualifying for an Original Article. - The registered **primary outcome** must match the reported primary outcome — discrepancies are a top reviewer flag. > If a trial was never prospectively registered, raise it now. It changes venue and framing and canno
- When to trigger
- The non-negotiable: prospective trial registration
- Protocol and statistical analysis plan (SAP)
- Design rigor checklist (trials)
- Observational studies
- Operating pass for New England Journal of Medicine
- Output format
- Anti-patterns
What does the nejm-study-design skill do?
Use to confirm study-design rigor and the mandatory prospective trial registration, protocol, and statistical analysis plan before writing up a clinical study for NEJM. Surfaces registration problems early — they cannot be fixed retroactively.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill nejm-study-design --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.