One of the things we have been doing is offering workshops in Nepal on writing for publication. Followed up by papers in health journals like to attached about the process of writing papers and the publication process. Perhaps of help to some!

Edwin

Its first of all interesting you are working in Nepal for research, actually its great. What is the field if you don't mind me asking?

Thanks for the article. Writing the paper is definitely a skill, an art and a challenge, but what about the actual methodology e.g how to start out with a good hypothesis. That's something very hard to write guidelines on, its more a skill you acquire by trial and error, or from a very good mentor! How is that approached in Nepal? Is there teaching for the core skills, or just the publication aspect of research?

Hi Syed,

Just so I understand you correctly, you are saying that medical students in residency programs in India do have access to some kind of workshops for research skills at some universities, but not all medical schools offer this.

You said that some institutes are trying to motivate clinical professionals to do research by making a policy that postgraduate (medical students?) need to publish at least one paper to be eligible for the final exam. Does the university then always provide research skills training to the students?

The motivational policy is an interesting one and similar to the policy in China for medical professionals. My issue with this is

1) Why do we want all our medical professionals to publish research? In my opinion you want all medical professionals to have a very good understanding of research data and study results so they can apply it to their work, but you do not need every doctor to publish his own work.

secondly,

2) Why is it assumed to be motivational to make postgraduates do something they they do not want to do, and really do not need to do (if you agree with point 1)?

In China a similar but more extreme policy has produced a lot of very over stressed doctors who have no interest in research but must do it to graduate/get promoted. The few good pieces of research, that you are right should definitely be published, get lost under a mountain of very average to poor research. That is very problematic right now at least in the radiology field where I worked.

In India what is the national policy for publishing in the medical profession? Do all medical graduates have to publish, and do all clinical hospital departments also have to publish academic research to meet some kind of hospital publishing quota?

Whilst trying to get a paper published on health research in Nepal we experienced a number of obstacles which we described in the attached paper. Writing scientific papers is an art and a skill, but getting published also involves finding your way round journal submission processes, peer review and journal editors. Perhaps our paper in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is of use to some budding scientific authors.

Edwin

Article The long and winding road to publication

Have mercy on the reviewers...

Hi, Laura

I can’t agree with you more. There really is no point forcing clinicians to do research just for the sake of it. In a way this is a misallocation of medical resources.

I have come across three reasons, past and present, to make doctor publish or even do a research degree and all of them seem poorly justified.

Firstly, research had been used as a “holding pattern” or a barrier to career advancement when there are insufficient posts for all. However, what was needed was better manpower structure.

Secondly, again because of competition, research was employed to differentiate those who are more able and worthy of promotion. However, if the career is a clinical one, why do an additional assessment on a scientific basis.

Finally, some would argue that a research experience would train doctors in incorporating scientific data in their clinical practice. On the other hand, this can be achieved by teaching doctors to appraise scientific publications without doing the research themselves.

The problem with “publish or perish” is that doctors are pressured to produce research. Some of them may be of suboptimal quality making the result of which difficult to interpret and therefore requires more research. I hope this vicious cycle can be stopped.

Just came across this article that illustrates the pressure, and the resaons, for doctors to publish and I quote, "The whole publication system is at fault ... Publication is a game that doctors play and is related to career progression."

Boldt: the great pretender. BMJ 2013; 346:16-18