Remember taking the 2017 LQ Survey? Wondering about whether your answers make any difference? Well, they do!
To refresh your memory….
At the end of February 2017, a 10-question survey was sent to all members of the CMA using a link accessible on-line. We asked you everything from
whether you know what “Linacre” means (you don’t) to
how much of the LQ you get to read (about one-third of each issue) to
what kinds of articles you like (and would like more of) to
what you think of getting the LQ only electronically (you prefer print) to
whether you had an interest in an online discussion forum (you do) to
whether the LQ was your number one go-to for medical ethics answers (not quite) to
whether you would like CME with a nominal fee available through the LQ (maybe).
We also asked an open-ended question for comments, and 114 of the 385 total respondents gave us even more to think about.
The survey was open for 4 weeks, and from there the LQC (Linacre Quarterly Committee) and the LQEB (Linacre Quarterly Editorial Board) mulled over your responses, just long enough for the LQ to get a new publisher (SAGE) and a new Editor-in-Chief (Barbara Golder, JD, MD) in January 2018. So once we got them up to speed, we could see that we had definitely responded to some of your requests, others were in process, and for others, and we still have our work cut out for us.
What have we done so far?
We are trying really hard to make sure that everyone knows why “Linacre” was chosen as the patron of the official journal of the CMA. So just open up your print issue, and look inside the inside front cover at the bottom, and you will see the explanation. Better yet, read the very first article of the very first issue of the LQ, published in 1934, reprinted in this very issue, and you can read the full account.
We noted that your top pick for article reads in the LQ are those about moral/ethical issues. That’s good. It means we are on the same page. We also noted that you want to read about the intersection of your faith with the field of medicine as you want to grow in the spiritual life. We want to assure you that the LQ is going to continue to specialize in this content. It sounds as if we have a perfect mission match.
Since the 2015 LQ Survey, we added the series “On Being a Catholic Physician” – and the 2017 survey says you like it. In 2018, thanks to the work of our new Editor-in-Chief, we started reprinting an article from years-gone-by, giving you an opportunity to mull over some history and consider the long-view of some ethical issues. Earlier this year, we started a new series called “The Last Word,” calling on the wisdom of someone outside the CMA to think through a medical/moral concept. We think you will like all these new additions, too. Do let us know.
Our Editor Emeritus Bill Williams worked tirelessly to have the full cohort of past issues accessible to the CMA membership and beyond. Partnering with Marquette University, you can now go to https://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/ to read PDF scans of issues of the LQ from 1932 to 2007. Yet to come will be an index to permit searching past articles that may be of interest to you.
What are we still working on?
Again thanks to the incredible efforts of our Editor Emeritus, Bill Williams, the Linacre Quarterly is indexed with PubMed, so recognized as a peer-reviewed academic journal. We know that when scientific studies are presented in the LQ, you want quality work that can be trusted to stand up to rigorous review. While the journal has superb peer reviewers, we are continuing to be sure the process of peer review is always at the highest standard. To do this we are seeking to expand and strengthen our peer reviewer pool and to further improve the peer review process. SAGE has provided excellent tools to help us with this work.
We think it would be great if you read every single word in every issue. However we are willing to admit that might be unrealistic, for many reasons. In any case, we have studied your responses related to what you like, what you don’t like, and what you want more or less of, and we hope that you are starting to see the results. We do understand that time is an issue, so we are looking for ways to keep our articles high in quality but lower in word count. The staff knows your time is valuable. We hope to maximize the benefit of the Linacre Quarterly to your life in practice and minimize your time commitment.
Even among our youngest members, there is a desire to hold a print journal in your hands and read words on paper. Nevertheless, it was clear that you also want electronic access that is accessible, that works, and that works easily. Our SAGE site is user-friendly with great statistical tools, getting there as a CMA member with full access is still a challenge. Our Editor in Chief is working with the CMA to make access to our membership simple and fast through the cathmed.org homepage. If you have issues, please contact her (bgolder@cathmed.org) or Jill Blumenfeld (blumenfeld@cathmed.org). We can’t fix what we don’t know about, so your feedback is essential
We know that we can leverage the powerful platforms or social media to promote the mission of the CMA and to help evangelize the culture. SAGE helps us to track how many readers are accessing our articles online and our social media impact. Some articles from LQ have already made a hit — and other are positioned to do so. Do you use social media? Help us get the message out there. Follow us on Facebook (The Linacre Quarterly) and on Twitter (@TheLinacre).
What is yet to come?
We have noticed that the secular world has picked up on the diversity of ethical topics in medicine better than Catholics have. And sometimes Catholics and non-Catholics and even atheists can agree on ethical problems and their solutions. These are opportunities for us to build bridges. We want to expand the diversity of moral and ethical topics treated in the LQ. There are many of these issues in the world of medicine. We want to explore these with you and provide ways that Catholic healthcare professionals can evangelize the culture even in your own workplace. And perhaps help you practice medicine with greater intentionality toward holiness.
Another result that came from the 2015 LQ Survey and then implemented by Bill Williams was the addition of a brief summary of each article published in the LQ. This summary (distinct from the abstract) is written to be accessible to those outside the medical profession. They should also help our busy healthcare professionals skim off the surface of each ISSUE and decide to which articles they should devote more time. We have yet to work those summaries into evangelization tools but are already tweeting some of our content. Send us your ideas; we are anxious to expand out reach.
Some local CMA guilds use LQ articles for journal club meetings and have a great time doing it. We’d like to find other ways local guilds are using the LQ and support your work. Got ideas? What can we do to assist your guild?
Thanks for reading the Linacre Quarterly and thanks for participating in our surveys. But we really do want more engagement and feedback. Join us in conversation, write a letter to the editor, become a peer reviewer, solicit authors, participate in our next survey (look for one in 2020). Tell us what we should be asking, and doing.