Here - Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Do you ever wonder why you agree
to do things?
June 2010 By Raja Mukherjee, Editor
Do you ever wonder why you agree
to do things? The phrase “just say no”
comes to mind, but for those of us of a
certain generation, not in the context it
was widely used back then! When
Malcolm Hawthorne, then in his role as
Medical Director, suggested setting up
this journal, little did I realise I would be
the one running with it. OK, naive I hear
you cry. Maybe even stronger comments
from some, but unfortunately I tend to
agree with them. That phrase comes
back to haunt you from time to time.
The remit of the journal, to begin with at
least, is to allow a space for doctors in
the trust to develop skills at writing to a
peer reviewed level. When I say that, I
mean that it will not simply accept badly
written or poorly thought out pieces. I
will however, with my editorial board,
look to develop the talent and skill of
those in the trust who are interested in
publishing. They may as yet not have the
type of data that would interest national
or international journals, but the piece
may still be of interest to us locally.
Primarily, this would initially aim at
medical trainees but that should not
exclusively mean it will be restricted to
this group.
My own experience of publishing is
similar to that reported by Dr Persaud in
his later editorial. It can be brutal out
there. Like him, I think it is important to
not give up and keep trying. Not only
does it make you feel great when your
name is in print, but even small new
additions to what is known can be
important. Perseverance can be
important as it is not uncommon to get
initially rejected. There are times I have
wanted to throttle reviewers who have
simply not understood what you were
getting at. Did they actually read what
you said or was it that you simply did not
explain it well enough? Limitations on
what you can present, in terms of word
counts and restrictions on references
makes it challenging. In the end though,
establishing something new is never easy.
That is unfortunately the reality of how
things are. As such, better to learn in a
non threatening environment with peers
who you might actually know and will
take your piece seriously.
With this journal we have several aims.
Firstly we wanted to allow the
opportunity for people to present and
share work they are doing but that would
not normally be of interest to those
outside of the trust. Secondly it was an
opportunity to hone skills. We are using
the same set of internationally accepting
standards for publishing that are adopted
by many journals including the BMJ and
Lancet. Whilst I suspect we won’t publish
anything of their calibre, we do hope it
will be of a good standard. The articles
will be placed onto the trust internet site
and thus can be accessed by anyone with
web access. This means you can be
quoted in work by others and the
information you produce will be
accessible to the wider world. It will also
count as a peer reviewed publication.
In this first edition we present some
audits undertaken by medical teams in
the trust. There is a book review as well
as an interview with our Chief Executive
Fiona Edwards. Ok so it is not expansive
but you have to start somewhere. We
hope this will grow and that we can open
it up to the whole trust and all specialties.
Eventually we want it to grow into
something we can all be proud of. We
hope you enjoy this first edition. It is a
start and will only succeed with your
involvement. Thank you for taking the
time to read and hopefully to contribute
in the future.
Editorial
Surrey and Borders Online Journal www.sabp.nhs.uk/journal 3