American Medical Student Research Journal Chat

Edit: Transcript available at http://bit.ly/1r1lKuR 

AMSRJ Chat
Thursday, July 10, 2014
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
#medlibs Twitter chat

Join Julia M. Esparza (@juliaesparza), MLS, AHIP as she leads a discussion with Nadine Kaskas and others from American Medical Student Research Journal (AMSRJ) on the development of the journal, the lessons learned, and after the successful launch of the first issue the future plans of the journal.  

Medical students at Louisiana State University Health in Shreveport, LA (LSU Health Shreveport) felt there was a lack of reviewer and editorial opportunities for medical students. They wanted to create an independent, open-access medical student journal to provide a fair and focused platform for international, multi-institutional student participation in the peer review and editorial process at all levels. They felt this experience would be of value to future clinicians and physician-scientists.

Led by Nadine Kaskas (Editor-in-Chief) and David Ballard (Deputy Editor) and with the help of 39 supportive faculty advisors the students embarked on a journey to develop a publishing infrastructure, create standardized education for student reviewers and editors, call for submissions and publish an open access journal within 10 months.

The journal is unique as a student journal because it is set up as an independent non-profit, 501(c)(3) without an official institutional affiliation. With a goal of providing a publishing outlet for basic science and clinical research as well as a platform for students to share their clinical experiences with each other, they were excited when they received submissions from medical students from over 29 institutions, with many of them international.

During the development, at the suggestion of other faculty, Ms. Kaskas sought suggestions from the Department of Medical Library Science Faculty at LSU Health Shreveport on publishing software (that was free), creating educational videos for the editors, and assisting in a final copy editing review of the first issue. In addition, through the network power of Medlib-L and AAHSL-all, the librarians helped distribute the call for submissions and the announcement of the first issue publication to the powerful librarian network.



About AMSRJ

• The American Medical Student Research Journal (AMSRJ) is an academic publication written, reviewed, and edited by medical students working in association with faculty mentors

• AMSRJ publishes original research, reviews, case reports, policy position articles, humanities essays, and artwork

• AMSRJ is run by a team of over 100 with 11 student editors, 39 faculty advisors, 76 reviewers and reviewers-in-training, and an International Marketing

Committee

• Since releasing the first call for submissions November 2013, we have received submissions from 29 institutions

• We are CrossRef members and have DOI privileges

• We have over 900 followers on Facebook and have received promotion from the AAMC, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Medical Library Association, and several universities across the US.

Spring 2014 Issue

• Our first issue featured a Foreword from Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, the New England Journal of Medicine Editor-in-Chief, and students from Cornell University, Duke University, LSU Health Shreveport and New Orleans, Penn State University, Stanford University, Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Birmingham (England), University of California Los Angeles, University of Colorado, Virginia Commonwealth University, West Virginia University, and Yale University.

• Since online publication May 25, the first issue has received over 10,500 views in a little over a month.

• The current issue page, which has links to the full issue in pdf and e-reader format, as well as each individual article pdf, can be found here


Encourage Students to Get Involved

• Manuscript submission deadline for the next issue is July 31st

• Reviewers accepted on a rolling basis