Academic advancement of authors receiving tutoring from a medical journal

Educational roles as a continuum of mentoring's role in medicine - a systematic review and thematic analysis of educational studies from 2000 to 2018

BACKGROUND

Recent studies have gone to great lengths to differentiate mentoring from teaching, tutoring, role modelling, coaching and supervision in efforts to better understand mentoring processes. This review seeks to evaluate the notion that teaching, tutoring, role modelling, coaching and supervision may in fact all be part of the mentoring process. To evaluate this theory, this review scrutinizes current literature on teaching, tutoring, role modelling, coaching and supervision to evaluate their commonalities with prevailing concepts of novice mentoring.

METHODS

A three staged approach is adopted to evaluate this premise. Stage one involves four systematic reviews on one-to-one learning interactions in teaching, tutoring, role modelling, coaching and supervision within Internal Medicine, published between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2018. Braun and Clarke's (2006) approach to thematic analysis was used to identify key elements within these approaches and facilitate comparisons between them. Stage two provides an updated view of one-to-one mentoring between a senior physician and a medical student or junior doctor to contextualise the discussion. Stage three infuses mentoring into the findings delineated in stage one.

RESULTS

Seventeen thousand four hundred ninety-nine citations were reviewed, 235 full-text articles were reviewed, and 104 articles were thematically analysed. Four themes were identified - characteristics, processes, nature of relationship, and problems faced in each of the four educational roles.

CONCLUSIONS

Role modelling, teaching and tutoring, coaching and supervision lie within a mentoring spectrum of increasingly structured interactions, assisted by assessments, feedback and personalised support that culminate with a mentoring approach. Still requiring validation, these findings necessitate a reconceptualization of mentoring and changes to mentor training programs and how mentoring is assessed and supported.

Improving Publication Quality and Quantity for Acute Care Authors From Low- and Middle-Income Settings

STUDY OBJECTIVE

Researchers from low- and middle-income countries have limited access to publishing and editing resources. This study describes a journal-initiated platform to improve publication quantity and quality in Sub-Saharan Africa emergency care research: Author Assist.

METHODS

This is a descriptive report of a quality improvement project of referrals to the African Journal of Emergency Medicine's (AfJEM's) Author Assist program between January 2011 and December 2015. After either pre- or post-peer review rejection, authors are matched to an experienced volunteer assistant to revise and resubmit their article in a process that blinds handling editors and reviewers, but not the editor in chief, to participation. Participant data were collected from an Author Assist coordination database and linked to Scopus (Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and the journal's online submission platform.

RESULTS

Of the 47 articles referred for Author Assist, 12 (26%) were originally rejected in the pre-peer review stage and 35 (74%) after peer review. Twenty-eight (60%) authors offered Author Assist enrolled. Of the 14 resubmissions during the study period, 12 (86%) were accepted for publication. For comparison, 37 of 40 regular revisions (93%) (without assistance) were accepted for publication during the same period.

CONCLUSION

Author Assist reversed 1 in 4 rejection decisions through a process that unavoidably but minimally biases peer review. Of the few free publication-improvement services targeting researchers in low- and middle-income countries, AfJEM's Author Assist is the only journal-led initiative, and the only one specific to emergency medicine. To continue to refine the design of the program, we recommend further qualitative research exploring author decisions to pursue or forgo enrollment in Author Assist and research examining author and assistant experiences once enrolled.

Teaching professional writing in an academic health sciences center: the Writing Center model at the Medical University of South Carolina

BACKGROUND

Writing is taught as professional competency in higher education generally, but the health science education literature emphasizes writing as a pedagogical means rather than a professional end. The Medical University of South Carolina established a Writing Center in 1994 to teach professional writing.

SUMMARY

This report describes the rationale for profession-specific, graduate-level writing instruction; summarizes the Writing Center model; and reports usage data. Students have reported improvement in particular texts and said they would be better able to complete writing tasks in the future.

CONCLUSIONS

Interventions modeled after the Writing Center and staffed with professionally trained writing teachers may provide a means to pool resources to teach writing as professional competency. The Writing Center has provided the expertise to teach professional writing without demanding curricular revision.

Quality of reporting of experimental studies in medical education: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE

Determine the prevalence of essential elements of reporting in experimental studies in medical education.

DESIGN

Systematic review.

DATA SOURCES

Articles published in 2003 and 2004 in Academic Medicine, Advances in Health Sciences Education, American Journal of Surgery, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Medical Education, and Teaching and Learning in Medicine.

REVIEW METHODS

Articles describing education experiments, including evaluation studies with experimental designs, were identified (n = 185) by reviewing titles and abstracts. A random sample (n = 110) was selected for full review. The full text of each article was evaluated for the presence of guideline-based features of quality reporting: a critical literature review, conceptual framework, statement of study intent (e.g. aim, research question, or hypothesis), statement of study design, definition of main intervention and comparison intervention or control group, and consideration of human subject rights.

RESULTS

Of the 105 articles suitable for review, 47 (45%) contained a critical literature review and 58 (55%) presented a conceptual framework. A statement of study intent was present in 80 articles (76%), among which the independent and dependent variables were operationally defined in 38 (47%) and 26 articles (32%), respectively. A total of 17 articles (16%) contained an explicit study design statement. Among the 48 studies with a comparison group, 35 (73%) clearly defined the comparison intervention or control group. Institutional review board approval or participant consent was reported in 44 articles (42%).

CONCLUSIONS

The quality of reporting of experimental studies in medical education was generally poor. Criteria are proposed as a starting point for establishing reporting standards for medical education research.

Survive, Help, Learn: Experience of a Medical Journal in War and Post-War Times

Medical journals and their editors have a unique responsibility in armed conflicts. The experience of the Croatian Medical Journal during and after the 1991-1995 war in Croatia shows how a medical journal can survive, help others and learn in times of war. The first duty of a medical journal in such circumstances is to publish scientific articles on various aspects of war medicine, and to document cases of human rights abuses. In small scientific communities, editors can offer their expertise and assist authors in writing and publishing war-related research and reports. In post-conflict period, medical journals have a responsibility to participate in peace-building and reconciliation efforts. They can do so by publishing good scientific articles regardless of their place or country of origin, re-establishing contacts with colleagues from the opposing sides, striving for the multiethnic or multinational Editorial and Advisory Boards, and engaging in collaborative research and regional initiatives.