Students should seek to publish not just in medical journals
Editor - With reference to the letter by Hanratty
and Lawlor on student publications,1 since 1992 I have
taught a course in public health media advocacy in the master of public
health at the University of Sydney. Each year, students are required to
write a letter to the editor of a big newspaper on any public health
matter that is newsworthy. If a letter is published the writer gains 10
bonus marks in his or her assessment. Most elect to write to the
Sydney Morning Herald, which daily receives an average 200
letters and publishes about 30. Our class size is around 25, and our
class publication record is 14 published letters over the six week
course. The exercise is very popular with most students, and some-once
infected with the publication bug-metamorphose into helpless, chronic
letter writers.
The circulation rates and readerships of newspapers greatly exceed
those of medical journals. The letters page is one of the most avidly
read sections of newspapers, and competition to get your letter
selected is far greater than for most medical journals. Politicians and
other decision makers in the health system read newspapers
too-probably far more than they read medical journals. Newspapers are
often disdained as fish and chip wrappers, but they can be highly
influential in steering the public health agenda.
Simon Chapman, deputy editor, Tobacco Control, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney (A27) NSW 2006, Australia
Email: simon@cmed.wsahs.nsw.gov.au
studentBMJ 2000;08:131-174 May ISSN 0966-6494
- Hanratty B, Lawlor D. Getting letters published in journals is good aim for medical students. BM 1999;319:1198. (30 October.)
