Table 2.

Writing Helps Create and Sustain Positive Work and Learning Environments and Culture

Writing benefit	Article types	Explanation
Support your colleagues	Letters to the editor	There is a great need to support one another in our careers. A letter to the editor allows for you to support your colleagues in a way that benefits them (citations) and you (publication). It allows you to amplify the work of a colleague—or many colleagues—even when you cannot be there to do it in person. This is one of those areas where service to others has a tangible professional benefit; as service, the letter to the editor also contributes to wellness.
Invest in your team	All writing products	Teaching members of our teams to write prepares them for success now, and for the next step in their career, which is likely to be with a different team. While it is counter-intuitive to think that preparing someone for success somewhere else is valuable to you, it is clear that when you invest in others, they want to stay on your team.7 For those of us who find that writing itself actually contributes more stress, partnering with skilled academicians can allow newer writers to contribute, learning tools to consider how to break writing down into bite-sized pieces that serve as steppingstones to academic work.
Celebrate success	All writing products	Articles are excellent ways to celebrate the success and completion of any project. Celebrations contribute to a positive work environment and adds value for your team.
Satisfaction in the science	Original articles	Designing a scholarly project and looking into the science of the question and writing a manuscript to deal with it, cannot only satisfy the faculty member, but can also be a source of wellness, especially when the literature may provide advice different than that the faculty member received. An example of this is when author K.C. was told by a tenured leader that tenure does not matter for him (K.C.); K.C. and J.R. proceeded to design two studies looking at tenure and faculty who are underrepresented in medicine.9–11
Seek and find healing	All writing products	Writing can be used to manage anxiety, stress, and complexity. Faculty should know that they can always write about situations, in response to situations, to help process situations and to share outcomes of situations no matter what career rank, work role or assignment.