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. 2000 Mar 18;320(7237):805.
Student publications
Students in Birmingham have published projects for more than 10 years
Editor—Hanratty and Lawlor's enthusiasm for students publishing their work evokes a sensation of déjà vu in this department.1 For over 10 years our students have undertaken project work in their third year, and we currently have a list of nearly 40 peer reviewed publications that have resulted. Most of these are papers rather than letters, but there are also oral and poster presentations at conferences, and in one recent case the content of a question in the House of Lords.
Publications by students include findings in relation to the following: ethnicity, cot deaths and sleeping position; antioxidants and red wine; communication between deaf patients and their general practitioners; dietary fat purchase in different ethnic groups; views on donated ovarian tissue; long term trends in risk of death or injury in railway accidents; and so on.
We think that it is good for students to publish their work, and the project work they do with this department is structured to facilitate this. We are happy to provide full details of the above projects, or the complete bibliography of publications our students have achieved, on request. We are pleased that other medical schools have discovered the benefits of what our students have been doing since at least 1989.
References
1.Hanratty B, Lawlor D. Getting letters published in journals is good aim for medical students. BMJ. 1999;319:1198. doi: 10.1136/bmj.319.7218.1198. . (30 October.) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
BMJ. 2000 Mar 18;320(7237):805.
Students' letters in all journals need to be included
Editor—Hanratty and Lawlor make a good point encouraging medical students to submit letters for publication.1-1 Their research is, however, inadequate evidence to support their conclusion. They limit their search to the letters pages of the BMJ, and bias results towards letters submitted by students working in departments of public health medicine and epidemiology. This is illustrated by checking the origins of letters published in Volume 319 (July to December 1999).
Medical students at Newcastle scored well, as all publications came from the above departments. A more appropriate way of assessing teaching quality in university would be to include letters and articles in all journals of individual specialties.
Assessing 3842 letters and articles from a whole month of all journals would be more representative of the contribution made by medical students to publications. This would limit the bias of the above study and may show different strengths at different universities.
References
1-1.Hanratty B, Lawlor D. Getting letters published in journals is good aim for medical students. BMJ. 1999;319:1198. doi: 10.1136/bmj.319.7218.1198. .(30 October). [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
BMJ. 2000 Mar 18;320(7237):805.
Students should seek to publish not just in medical journals
Editor—With reference to the letter by Hanratty and Lawlor on student publications,2-1 since 1992 I have taught a course in public health media advocacy in the master of public health at the University of Sydney. Each year, students are required to write a letter to the editor of a big newspaper on any public health matter that is newsworthy. If a letter is published the writer gains 10 bonus marks in his or her assessment. Most elect to write to the Sydney Morning Herald, which daily receives an average 200 letters and publishes about 30. Our class size is around 25, and our class publication record is 14 published letters over the six week course. The exercise is very popular with most students, and some—once infected with the publication bug—metamorphose into helpless, chronic letter writers.
The circulation rates and readerships of newspapers greatly exceed those of medical journals. The letters page is one of the most avidly read sections of newspapers, and competition to get your letter selected is far greater than for most medical journals. Politicians and other decision makers in the health system read newspapers too—probably far more than they read medical journals. Newspapers are often disdained as fish and chip wrappers, but they can be highly influential in steering the public health agenda.
References
2-1.Hanratty B, Lawlor D. Getting letters published in journals is good aim for medical students. BMJ. 1999;319:1198. doi: 10.1136/bmj.319.7218.1198. . (30 October.) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
