Publish or perish: Success with publication in pharmacy residency training

Pharmacy residency training standards require development of medical writing skills. These skills are fundamental to pharmacy clinicians and scholars alike. Despite this requirement, new practitioners and seasoned clinicians frequently struggle with scholarly development and manuscript generation for a variety of reasons, ranging from lack of experience or familiarity with the process of peer-review submission to time constraints.

We describe a process for fostering pharmacy resident scholarship and publication utilized at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, including the stages of the project development process and corresponding responsibilities during each phase of the manuscript submission process. From identification of interest, to project and manuscript development, review, submission, revision, and reflection, our postgraduate pharmacy residents receive guidance and structure from a preceptor mentor to usher them through this experience for the first time.

The program has had success utilizing this structured approach to supporting residency publication efforts, with the preparation of 23 manuscripts that have resulted in peer-reviewed publications from 28 residents graduating between 2013 and 2017. This results in a resident authorship rate of 82%.

Although medical writing and manuscript development may not be an intuitive process, it is imperative that preceptors and individuals interacting with postgraduate pharmacy trainees consider exposing their trainees to this process, with foresight into thinking about a structured approach to publication at the onset of project development.