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Getting published in medical education

Dr Katherine Woolf

Lecturer in Medical Education

@kathwoolf

What we will cover in the coming hour

• Why publish?• Deciding what to publish• Choosing a journal• Top tips on getting published• Get writing

Objectives

By the end of this session you will: Be able to give three reasons for publishing in

medical education Be able to describe how to choose a journal Be able to list 5 top tips for getting published Have started drafting something for publication

Why publish?

• Promotion/job applications• Share knowledge/experience• Raise profile of important issue• Helps think about ideas in depth

Where and what?

Peer-reviewed journals: various types of output

Original research

Editorial

“How to”

Letter

Where publish?

Peer-reviewed journals: Original research article (e.g. RCT, observational

study, systematic review) Editorial/Commentary Other type of publication (e.g. “how to” articles) Letter

Industry report (usually commissioned)Trade magazines (e.g. “BMJ Careers”/”The

Psychologist”)Blog

What we will cover in the coming hour

• Why publish?• Deciding what to publish• Choosing a journal• Top tips on getting published• Get writing

Medical education journals

Generic medical journals

Specialty-specific

Criteria for choosing a journal

Quality

Competition

Appropriateness/applicability

Judging quality

• Peer reviewed?• Impact factor?• Respected colleague’s opinions?

Judging quality: Impact factor

Frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a period

Published by ISI Web of Knowledge (Thomson Scientific)

Only rough indicator of quality

Impact factors 2010 (2006)Some medical education journals

Medical Education 2.6 (2.5)Academic Medicine 2.6 (2.6)Medical Teacher 1.5 (0.9) Advances in Health Sci Educ 1.4 (1.1)BMC Medical Education 1.2 (n/a)

Criteria for choosing a journal

Quality

Competition

Appropriateness/applicability

Competition

BMJ: ~7% of 7000-8000 articles received per year1

Medical Education: ~20% of 900-1000 articles received per year2

Harder to publish UK research in US journal Academic Medicine3

1. http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors2. http://www.mededuc.com/faqs.html3. Tutarel, O (2002) BMC Medical Education

Criteria for choosing a journal

Quality

Competition

Appropriateness/applicability

How do you judge it?

Judging appropriateness/applicability

Read regularly (or look at back issues)

Editorial policy/Aims and scope

Ask colleagues – do they read it?

Most downloaded

An admissions OSCE: the multiple mini-interview (Eva, 2004)

Applying the science of learning to medical education (Mayer, 2010)

A critical review of simulation-based medical education (McGaghie, 2010)

Most read

Student selected components: do students learn what teachers think they teach? (Murphy et al. 2008)

Academic achievement, depression and anxiety during medical education predict the styles of success in a medical career: A 10-year longitudinal study (Walkiewicz et al. 2012)

Assessment of professionalism: A consolidation of current thinking. (Goldie J. Online first September 3, 2012)

Highly accessed

Prospective study of the effects of complimentary food on attendance and physician attitudes at medical grand rounds at an academic medical center (Sergovis et al., 2007)

Burnout and psychiatric morbidity among medical students entering clinical training: a three year prospective questionnaire and interview-based study (Dahlin & Runeson, 2007)

Role-play for medical students learning about communication: Guidelines for maximising benefits (Nestel & Tierney, 2007)

Getting published: top tips

1. Write to excite:help the editor accept your MS

Make your title: Self-explanatory Interesting to the journal’s audience

1. Write to excite:help the editor accept your MS

Make your title: Self-explanatory Interesting to the journal’s audience

Sell your idea in the first sentence of your introduction/abstract: What is the urgent gap your MS is filling?

Getting published: my 5 top tips

1. Write to excite

2. Fit in

2. Fit in: make your MS look ready to publish

Analyse papers and read journal-specific instructions re: Title format (colons? puns?) Length of paragraph Formality of language (1st or 3rd person?) Headings Referencing style Word count Font

Getting published: my 5 top tips

1. Write to excite

2. Fit in

3. Feedback

3. Feedback: get as much as possible

Ask for feedback on your MS from: Your intended audience Experienced colleagues People who know how to give it constructively

Getting published: my 5 top tips

1. Write to excite

2. Fit in

3. Feedback

4. Nobody’s perfect

4. Nobody’s perfect: so don’t try to attain perfection

Perfection is impossible Attempting to reach it can be destructive Peer reviewers will make you change your

manuscript however perfect you think it is

Getting published: my 5 top tips

1. Write to excite

2. Fit in

3. Feedback

4. Nobody’s perfect

5. Try again

5. Try again:and again, and again

The best papers are rejected, often many times Rejection usually comes with feedback: take it Papers are often better after feedback that comes

with rejection

What we will cover in the coming hour

• Why publish?• Deciding what to publish• Choosing a journal• 5 top tips on getting published• Get writing

Get writing

Get a pen and paper

Get writing

Get a pen and paper

Think of a medical education topic you are interested in (1 min)

Get writing

Get a pen and paper

Think of a medical education topic you are interested in (1 min)

Write continuously for 5 minutes on that topic (won’t share it with anyone now)

Summary

• Publishing is key to improving medical education & also helps our CVs…

• Lots of different avenues for publishing including variety of journals

• Write to excite the editor of your chosen publication

• Get feedback on your MS• Don’t be put off by rejection

For those who were there, solutions to the “guess the aim from the intro para” task…

Introductory paragraph 1:

Aim: To explore the decision-making processes of pre-clerkship medical students in the face of standardised professional dilemmas.

Ginsburg & Lingard (2011) ‘Is that normal?’ Pre-clerkship students’ approaches to professional dilemmas. Medical Education; 45(4):362–371

For those who were there, solutions to the “guess the aim from the intro para” task…

Introductory paragraph 2.

Aim: To assess perceived stress, sources of stress and their severity; and to assess the determinants of stressed cases.

Shah, Hasan, Malik & Sreeramareddy. (2010) Perceived Stress, Sources and Severity of Stress among medical undergraduates in a Pakistani Medical School. BMC Medical Education, 10:2

For those who were there, solutions to the “guess the aim from the intro para” task…

Introductory paragraph 3:

Aim: To compare the educational effectiveness of ward rounds conducted with two different learning methodologies.

Melo, Hannois, Rodrigues & Natal (2011). Active learning on the ward: outcomes from a comparative trial with traditional methods. Medical Education; 45(3):273-9.