The Writing Retreat: A High-Yield Clinical Faculty Development Opportunity in Academic Writing

Abstract

Background The need for consistent academic productivity challenges junior clinician-scholars, who often lack the aptitude to ensure efficient production of manuscripts. Intervention To solve this problem, an academic division of a major medical center developed an off-site writing retreat. The purpose of the retreat was not to teach writing skills, but to offer senior mentor assistance with a focus on the elements of manuscript writing. Methods The retreat paired senior faculty members with junior staff. Senior faculty identified manuscript topics and provided real-time writing and editing supervision. Team-building exercises, midcourse corrections, and debriefing interviews were built into the retreat. The number of manuscripts and grant proposals generated during the 2008–2011 retreats was recorded, and the program was evaluated by using unstructured debriefing interviews. Results An average of 6 to 7 faculty members and fellows participated in each retreat. During the past 4 years, participants produced an average of 3 grant proposals and 7 manuscripts per retreat. After the writing retreat, each fellow and junior faculty member produced an average of 4 scholarly products per year, compared to fewer than 2 for prior years' retreats. Participant feedback indicated the success of the retreat resulted from protected time, direct mentorship by the scholars involved, and pairing of authors, which allows for rapid production of manuscripts and accelerated the editing process. More than 80% of mentors returned each year to participate. Conclusions The writing retreat is a feasible, effective strategy to increase scholarship among faculty, acceptable to mentees and mentors, and sustainable over time.

An online academic writing and publishing skills course: Help Syrians find their voice

“…Although live writer retreats and support groups have been shown to increase productivity in academic publishing,[61516] a live face-to-face course was difficult to achieve in our circumstances, especially in Syria. We found that our low-cost blended online approach (i.e., synchronous sessions via GoToWebinar in addition to posting the recorded sessions on YouTube™ along with posting educational materials and facilitating discussions on Facebook™) was able to reach a large number of early career researchers and students in the Arab region, more than half of them were from Syria.…”

Limits to Scholarship: How Can We Enhance the Program Director’s Role?

“…Such programs have been shown to enhance promotions and educational awards, as well as new educational responsibilities and programs. Programs that provide faculty with direct mentorship in scholarship have been found useful also, as exemplified by an off-site academic writing retreat that has encouraged and succeeded in increasing production of peer-reviewed publications by junior faculty [17].…”

Writing skills in academic medicine

“…Several different faculty development venues have been demonstrated to increase faculty writing, from day-long retreats to monthly scholarship-focused sessions. 3,14,15 Formal writing workshops can be helpful for junior faculty to help them get started on writing. The American Medical Writers Association developed a toolkit for new writers which may be helpful (http://www.amwa-dvc.org/toolkit/).…”