The role of a student advisor

Shaping the content of the journal

One of the most important roles of the student adviser is to help decide what goes in the journal. This is done in several ways:

  • Voting on the web to accept, reject or return articles to the author
  • Critiquing the journal each month saying what you liked, disliked and how things can be improved - we will send you a rota for doing this soon, detailing who will to do it, and when.
  • Suggesting what you would like to see in the journal in the future. If you feel we have overlooked an important topic in education or careers or should write an editorial about a particular topic, then please let us know. We are based in an office in London so often rely on you to tell us what is going in a particular topic in your country. In effect, you are the eyes and ears of medical students in your country and so need to let us know what’s going on so we can discuss (by email) if it is worth writing, or commissioning an article about.
  • The above equally applies to news and Eyespy. In the past, we have taken Minerva from the BMJ, but from now on, we are writing our own. We need you to supply us with quirky vignettes, novel studies and news for this section. This is where you can send in those studies that tell you things like: ‘Viagra helps you study for exams’ or ‘medical students who part their hair on the left are the best doctors’ etc. Unless it’s a really groundbreaking study, then it belongs in Eyespy and not news. (see guidelines to authors for more details)
  • Recruiting experts to co-author articles with you and encouraging students in your country to write for the studentBMJ and advising them how to do it

Representing the studentBMJ in your country

Another important role is being an ambassador for the studentBMJ. Again this may take several forms:

  • Advertising the studentBMJ at your university by putting up posters in your faculty and on medical student notice boards. You will have to get permission for this from the authorities in your medical school. You can download posters from the website at - www.studentbmj.com/about/about.html
  • You may think of other ways of promoting studentBMJ in your country. Please let us know about it.
  • Going to meetings and seminars in your area to recruit people to write about their expert topic. You may want to co-author something with them. If you do want to attend on behalf of the studentBMJ, please contact us first - there may be concessions for the press and we can send you promotional material if appropriate.
  • Acting as a point of reference for potential authors in your country. Most medical students have a story to tell or an experience they want to share. One of your roles as an adviser is to help people write about them. You don’t have to physically write it yourself, but you can help to guide them about where to send their article to and you can also tell them how to access the ‘guidelines to authors,’ which are available on the homepage. You could also encourage people to write and advise them about suitable topics for the studentBMJ.
  • We are considering putting your contact details on our website for people in your country to contact. We would advise you to create a new internet email account for this purpose. Please let us know if you don’t want to feature on this site and if you do, please send us an appropriate email address. It might help if the email addresses were similar, but unfortunately we can’t offer a @studentbmj.com email address.

And finally, if in doubt about anything, please contact us:

Address:
studentBMJ
BMA House
Tavistock Square
London
WC1H 9JR
UK

(Last updated 27/08/04)