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A quantitative study of letters to the editor by medical students in medical education journals.

ABSTRACT: Letters to the Editor offer ways for readers to engage with authors' publications. Letters are the shortest manuscript for medical students to publish and medical-education journals are best suited. The UK Foundation Programme rewards medical students achieving PubMed ID publications and we hypothesise that this is a main motivation for medical students to submit Letters to the Editor. A review of 15 medical-education journals with an impact factor was conducted to identify numbers and percentages of Letters to the Editor by medical students between July 2018 and June 2020. Affiliation of medical students was collected. Our results show over two years, 299 letters were published by medical students equating to 45.9% of total letters. There was a 60% overall increase in letters by medical students published in the first 12 months compared to second 12 months. During this period overall numbers of letters published increased by 27%. 86% of the letters published by medical students over the two-year period were from UK medical schools. Five schools accounted for 60.5% of these letters. The three medical schools with highest numbers of letters published were King's College London, Imperial College London and University of Oxford for both 2018/19 and 2019/20. The increase in letters published overall with greater numbers published by students, may indicate greater awareness of Letters to the Editor as means of dissemination amongst medical students. UK medical schools published large numbers of letters, perhaps reflecting increasing importance to students of publications due to impacting on subsequent jobs. Results from our quantitative research revealing: large numbers of letters by medical students, increase in letters published from 2018/19 to 2019/20 and overrepresentation of UK medical students supports the hypothesis that medical students are publishing letters to achieve PubMed IDs. Further qualitative research is required to test our hypothesis.

SUBMITTER: Mukhammadaminov A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8057084 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundQuality improvement (QI) is an essential component of modern clinical practice. Front-line professionals offer valuable perspectives on areas for improvement and are motivated to deliver change. In the UK, all junior doctors are expected to participate in QI in order to advance to the next stage of their training. However, UK undergraduates receive no standardized training in QI methods. This is perpetuated within medical schools by a lack of teaching capacity and competing priorities, and may lead to tokenistic engagement with future QI projects.MethodsWe describe a near-peer teaching programme designed to introduce students to QI methods. This pilot study was conceived and delivered in full by junior doctors and used existing resources to ensure high quality teaching content. 111 fifth-year medical students from the University of Cambridge were taught in interactive, participative workshops that encourage them to develop their own QI change ideas and projects. Core topics included the model for improvement, driver diagrams, stakeholder engagement, measurement for improvement and analysing and presenting data. Students completed surveys before and immediately after this intervention to assess their understanding of and confidence in utilizing QI methods. Questionnaires were also completed by junior doctor tutors.ResultsAnalysis of questionnaires completed before and immediately after the intervention revealed statistically significant improvements in students' self-reported understanding of QI (p < 0.05) and confidence in applying techniques to their own work (p < 0.05). Students expressed a preference for QI teaching delivered by junior doctors, citing a relaxed learning environment and greater relevance to their stage of training. Tutors reported increased confidence in using QI techniques and a greater willingness to engage with QI in future.ConclusionsIn this single-centre study, near-peer teaching produced significant improvements in students' self-reported understanding of QI and confidence in applying QI methods. Near-peer teaching may constitute a sustainable means of teaching essential QI skills at undergraduate level. Future work must evaluate objective measures of student engagement with and competence in conducting QI.

Project description:BackgroundWikipedia, the multilingual encyclopedia, was founded in 2001 and is the world's largest and most visited online general reference website. It is widely used by health care professionals and students. The inclusion of journal articles in Wikipedia is of scholarly interest, but the time taken for a journal article to be included in Wikipedia, from the moment of its publication to its incorporation into Wikipedia, is unclear.ObjectiveWe aimed to determine the ranking of the most cited journals by their representation in the English-language medical pages of Wikipedia. In addition, we evaluated the number of days between publication of journal articles and their citation in Wikipedia medical pages, treating this measure as a proxy for the information-diffusion rate.MethodsWe retrieved the dates when articles were included in Wikipedia and the date of journal publication from Crossref by using an application programming interface.ResultsFrom 11,325 Wikipedia medical articles, we identified citations to 137,889 journal articles from over 15,000 journals. There was a large spike in the number of journal articles published in or after 2002 that were cited by Wikipedia. The higher the importance of a Wikipedia article, the higher was the mean number of journal citations it contained (top article, 48.13 [SD 33.67]; lowest article, 6.44 [SD 9.33]). However, the importance of the Wikipedia article did not affect the speed of reference addition. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was the most cited journal by Wikipedia, followed by The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. The multidisciplinary journals Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences were among the top 10 journals with the highest Wikipedia medical article citations. For the top biomedical journal papers cited in Wikipedia's medical pages in 2016-2017, it took about 90 days (3 months) for the citation to be used in Wikipedia.ConclusionsWe found evidence of "recentism," which refers to preferential citation of recently published journal articles in Wikipedia. Traditional high-impact medical and multidisciplinary journals were extensively cited by Wikipedia, suggesting that Wikipedia medical articles have robust underpinnings. In keeping with the Wikipedia policy of citing reviews/secondary sources in preference to primary sources, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was the most referenced journal.

Project description:BackgroundTo identify published letters to the editor (LTE) written in response to randomized controlled trials (RCTs), determine the topics addressed in the letters, and to examine if these topics were affected by the characteristics and results of the RCTs.MethodsComparative cross-sectional study of a representative sample of RCTs from a set of high-impact medical journals (BMJ, Lancet, NEJM, JAMA, and Annals of Internal Medicine). RCTs and their published LTE were searched from these 5 journals in 2007. Data were collected on RCTs and their characteristics (author affiliation, funding source, intervention, and effect on the primary outcome) and the topics addressed in published LTE related to these RCTs. Analysis included chi-square and regression analysis (RCT characteristics) and thematic analysis (LTE topics).ResultsOf 334 identified RCTs, 175 trials had at least one LTE. Of these, 381 published LTE were identified. Most RCTs, tested drug interventions (68%), were funded by government (54%) or industry (33%), and described an intervention that had a positive impact on the primary outcome (62%). RCT authors were primarily affiliated with an academic centre (78%). Ninety percent of the 623 LTE topics concerned methodological issues regarding the analysis, intervention, and population in the RCT. There was a significant association between funding source and impact on outcomes (p?=?0.002) or type of intervention tested (p?=?0.001) in these trials. Clinical and "Other" LTE topics were more likely to be published in response to a government funded RCT (p?=?0.005 and p?=?0.033, respectively); no other comparisons were significant.ConclusionsThis study showed that most LTE are about methodological topics, but found little evidence to support that these topics are affected by the characteristics or results of the RCTs. The lack of association may be explained by editorial censorship as a small proportion of LTE that are submitted are actually published.

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A quantitative study of letters to the editor by medical students in medical education journals.

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