Early-career researchers; the future of TCT

Abstract

Changing jobs, taking on new and exciting roles, is always challenging. Doing so in a pandemic is a whole other level of challenge. So when Annette and Paul kindly invited me to reflect on the changes I had seen at TCT in the last few years, my first memories are of firefighting, constantly trying to keep up, grappling with how to get ahead and wondering how to move from managing to future-proofing and innovating.

Having had time to reflect on it, I now see that the adaptations we made out of necessity have had surprising and sustainable impacts. One of the first pivots we made was to our travelling fellowship, because clearly no one could travel! At the same time, I was also starting to make some headspace to think about how we, as a journal team, could better support early-career researchers, especially those coming into our health professions education circle and trying to build work that was publishable. So, long story made short, with the instant support of ASME and Wiley, we repurposed our funding for the travelling fellowship into what is now our ‘New Voices in Health Professions Education’ programme.

This programme requires a lot of input from our editorial team and significant time to plan and prepare online sessions, but the outcomes have been more than worth it. We are growing a community of interested early-stage clinical and academic professionals, who not only access our editors and teams but generate a network among themselves. They are continuing to work together on projects after the programme ends, and it has grown from three participants the first year to an intake of 18 in 2023!

We muddled through that first year, but the following one brought another set of challenges. While submissions to all journals had unexpectedly risen dramatically during Covid, very little empirical research was conducted during this time. So a year later, many researchers had exhausted their submissions, and we saw a plunge in submissions.

Again, however, this provided an opportunity for us to think about new ways of viewing our issues and to invite different ways of publishing. Our early-career researcher special issue was therefore born out of both needs: our need to increase submissions and our mission and vision to support early-career researchers. Again, this was a real personal success marker for me; it is so difficult to complete a masters in medical/health professions education with work that is publishable in what has become a very competitive space. Journals always want something new, but the point of a master's programme is to develop the skills to be able to produce new research, and is a learning curve. So how could we provide this space, but not compromise on quality? We needed to articulate and clearly brand this issue, so that it was clear to readers that these articles were published for their methodological quality, their rigour and their attention to educational research standards, but that they also, of necessity, would be small and so not intended to have significant impact on the field of study. It is great to see this issue continue, and I hope many new authors will have a positive experience of submitting their work and feel that sense of achievement. This year's call remains open and I would strongly encourage anyone with a master's thesis sitting on the shelf to submit here.

TCT has always had an international brand, but this has been somewhat limited to medical professionals. Again, once the crisis had settled, I was able to consider how we could become more visible to those who do not know what the journal is about. As an ‘other’ health care professional myself, this was a really important personal challenge. So we set about enhancing our advisory committee in an effort to have ‘brand ambassadors’ who could help spread the message that TCT is about all professions involved in health care education and training. We specifically recruited from disciplines that were underrepresented through our authorship, and we sought collaboration opportunities with bodies and institutions such as the Incubator for Clinical Education Research. All of this brought us a new cohort of researchers, academics and professionals, a new way of publishing research (including through a number of research series).

I learned so much in this process about the importance of reaching out, asking for help and inviting new and innovative ways of doing things. I also learned that within the HPE community, people always say ‘yes’ to opportunities and new ways of approaching research publication. And I'm grateful to everyone who did so when I asked.

Of course, some of the challenges remain and have had singificant impact on journal growth. Peer review remains the most difficult issue for all journals, with no clear solutions. Author expectations of turn-around times are genuinely justified, but increasingly difficult to achieve.

TCT's 20th anniversary is a huge milestone and it has survived and thrived through many challenges and, I am sure, an occasional crisis! But people have a real connection to this journal, and mine started as an early-career researcher, looking to TCT for guidance and support in becoming a clinical teacher. I had no idea that years later I would take the responsibility of leading it through a pandemic!

When I started, someone told me that they always saw TCT as the ‘journal that gives you a hug’! As a community of academics, researchers, teachers and students, I hope we can all continue to ensure that it remains that way.

Aileen Barrett: Writing—original draft.