Publishing in Medical Education: Writing for Publication – Getting Started

Building on our previous BMERG Publishing in Medical Education Blogs, in this post Dr Sally Dowling talks about the exciting, but often challenging process of getting started with writing for publication, and the things that are important to do before you start writing.

Sally is a Lecturer at Bristol Medical School, working both for the Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals programme and the MSc Reproduction and Development (Co-Director). She also runs a series of writing for publication workshops for the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Bristol.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Many of us have pieces of work that we’d like to publish. This might be an idea from your area of expertise, a completed audit or evaluation, an innovation from your medical education practice, the outcomes of a study/research project/dissertation – or maybe an opinion piece, commentary or book review. Whatever this might be, there are several things that are important to do before you start writing. Many of these are in the form of questions you might need to ask yourself, or things that you might need to find out. It’s a good idea to do this type of preparation before you actually start to write as this will really increase the chance of your paper being sent for review.

So, how do you get started?

Ask yourself:

  • What am I trying to communicate – what is my aim?
  • What writing style/who is my audience?
  • Why is my message important/relevant?
  • What type of article do I want to write?

When you are clear about what you want to do, there is still more research needed before you start writing.

Should you write with others – or are you planning to write alone?

It depends! Have you undertaken the work with others (including as part of a doctoral or masters project)? Understanding publication ethics is important, as is thinking about authorship (see www.icmje.org/). Things to consider include what contribution each author has made to the manuscript, remembering that authors are accountable for the rigour, accuracy and integrity of the content – and don’t forget to agree the author order from the beginning! Usually these issues can be talked through straightforwardly (after all, you have probably been working together for a while) but they can sometimes be tricky to resolve.

Where do you want to publish your work?

Now you can start to think about where you would like to submit, and how that influences what and how you write it. Sarah Allsop covered some of this in her BMERG blog Publishing in Medical Education: Matching.  Explore journal websites and look at author guidelines – these will very specifically tell you about word length, abstract format, general formatting, including use of sub-headings, referencing style (and, sometimes, number permitted), the layout for tables/graphs, digital artwork etc (and how many you can include). It’s always much easier to write your article as the journal want to see it, rather than retrospectively make it fit to the guidelines.

Have you fully informed yourself about your target journal?

It’s also a good idea to read some papers published by your chosen journal, as well as looking at who is on the editorial board (do you know their work? Are they from a range of countries?). Is the potential journal open to a range of methodologies. Does it have an Impact Factor (a mark of quality, international standing)? Is this important to you? (or your department!). Can you find out what the time lag is between acceptance and publication – and is this important to you? Does the journal require an Article Processing Charge in order to publish your work, or is this optional? Yes, this is a lot of questions, but checking out all of these things before you start is really worthwhile and highly recommended.

Taking the time to work through this process at the start of your writing journey may seem onerous at first, but in the long term it not only helps your writing process, but it might just improve your chances of publishing where you want in the long term.

If you’d like to have an opportunity to explore these issues more, consider coming to one of the Medical Education Research Writing for Publication and Conference workshop sessions (contact Sally Dowling or see full programme here).

Hot Topics: BMERG launches a new page for Abstract Calls!

Sarah Allsop

Following on from our recent BMERG blog on Building Community: Attending, presenting and networking at Conferences we are launching a new page in the BMERG site to highlight abstract calls as they are released from Medical Education Associations. This list will build throughout the year and aims to support researchers to find out more easily about the timings of annual conferences and events.

Take a look by clicking on the “Abstract Calls!” in the top menu or clicking on the link below:


If you know of either a medical education and research event or an event with a broader scope that may be of interest to the BMERG audience, let us know in the comments below:


Building Community: Attending, presenting and networking at Conferences

Sarah Allsop

Medical education research is an increasingly active field, with conferences happening throughout the year across the globe. In this blog Bristol medical educators and researchers, Dr Santiago Rodriguez and Dr Sarah Allsop reflect on how to identify when and where these events happen.

Conferences are a staple in the calendar of academics and healthcare professionals, and help us all to share practice and learn from our wider community. Whether you are a student or a medical education researcher, if you are looking to network with experts in their fields across the world, or present your work, conferences can be a fantastic way to do this.

In healthcare education, all of the leading associations have events running throughout the year, two of the largest in Europe are the ASME and AMEE conferences each summer. In addition, there are many other opportunities to present medical education research, but one of the challenges is to know when and where these events are happening.

One resource that may be helpful is this list of major worldwide medical education conferences from Elsevier’s Osmosis blog team. Published on Feb 20, 2023 (and updated on May 4, 2023), this blog lists the details of around 20 high-profile conferences where you could consider submitting your work, as well as including a summary description of the conference and a link to their main website. We think it is a great starting point to find out what’s out there and look forward to sharing the abstract calls for many of these events as they are advertised during late 2023 and into 2024.


Another way of finding out about conferences and events is to join one of the MedEd Associations, read more in Sarah Allsop’s blog “Building Community: Networking Opportunities through joining a MedEd association


What are your favourite #MedEd events and conferences? Add your thoughts to the comments below!