Students' letters in all journals need to be included
Editor - Hanratty and Lawlor make a good
point encouraging medical students to submit letters for
publication.1 Their research is, however, inadequate
evidence to support their conclusion. They limit their search to the
letters pages of the BMJ and bias results towards letters
submitted by students working in departments of public health medicine
and epidemiology. This is illustrated by checking the origins of
letters published in Volume 319 (July to December 1999).
Medical students at Newcastle scored well, as all publications came
from the above departments. A more appropriate way of assessing
teaching quality in university would be to include letters and articles
in all journals of individual specialties.
Assessing 3842 letters and articles from a whole month of all journals
would be more representative of the contribution made by medical
students to publications. This would limit the bias of the above study
and may show different strengths at different universities.
Adrian Evans, specialist registrar, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH
studentBMJ 2000;08:131-174 May ISSN 0966-6494
- Hanratty B, Lawlor D. Getting letters published in journals is good aim for medical students. BMJ 1999;319:1198. (30 October).
