Picking a journal to submit to + places to present

[MadRadLad]

I've been working on a project which hopefully will be ready for submission in the near future. I'm currently at a loss in terms of how to start selecting which journal to submit to. My PI has a couple in mind but they would like me to try to do some of this myself to get a good feel for how the process works before they give me their suggestions. So far i've looked at some journals that some of my referenced articles have been published in and narrowed down a few whose scope seems to fit with what my manuscript will be about. Then i've looked at Impact Factors to see which ones are probably out of reach. Any other advice outside of that?

Also, what's the general consensus on where/when to present your work? I think my school might have a little poster session at some point where I can present this, but I would also like to maybe find a regional or national (doubtful) conference where I could also present at. Where would I look to find some conferences I can present at? I googled some but all that seems to come up at the big national (or international) ones like ASTRO and such...and I don't think my project fits within that level of importance. Also, is it okay to present a poster or something after a project has already been published? I know usually you can't submit an abstract to 2 conferences, was wondering what the etiquette was for presenting something within 6 months to 1 year of it appearing in a journal.

I know there's a lot of questions but I'm just trying to get some outside opinions on how else to get the most out of the work that i've been doing for the past few months. Input would be appreciated, thanks!

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[sunealoneal]

What a coincidence, I came on here with essentially the same questions. I've been working through a case report this past week. Is that something that would be able to land me a poster? Or does it have to be "bigger"?

And not to hijack OP's post, I'm deciding between doing one case report plus a review article vs multiple case reports this summer. Is one regarded better to residencies than the other? Or are they both relatively meaningless?

 

[MadRadLad]

I've been told that case reports don't carry much weight, not sure about review articles though.

 

[MegaVoltagePhoton]

I've been told that case reports don't carry much weight, not sure about review articles though.

True, a case report doesn't hold much weight. But honestly having sat on residency admission committees for the past few cycles, regarding research....

# of publications is probably just as impressive as prestige of publications, barring the major outliers. For example, a first author or really any author Nature paper is obviously super baller, and a first author Red Jrnl paper is pretty great, but we don't have that much time to read applications. The guy with 10 papers that are all fairly crappy to average is going to get a ton of points for having put together 10 papers. So...think to yourself, how much effort does a case report really take? The answer shouldn't be more than a few days to a week after hours tops, and no medical student should be turning that down unless they really have something great cooking.

Doubly true for a review paper. Those things end up getting cited more than you'd think.

And finally, most importantly, writing a paper is kind of like any other skillset. You get better at it with time. Putting out some mediocre case reports/reviews to hone your writing skills and learn the nuts and bolts of using EndNote, putting together figures, submitting a paper online ... is worth it.

 

[MadRadLad]

True, a case report doesn't hold much weight. But honestly having sat on residency admission committees for the past few cycles, regarding research....

# of publications is probably just as impressive as prestige of publications, barring the major outliers. For example, a first author or really any author Nature paper is obviously super baller, and a first author Red Jrnl paper is pretty great, but we don't have that much time to read applications. The guy with 10 papers that are all fairly crappy to average is going to get a ton of points for having put together 10 papers. So...think to yourself, how much effort does a case report really take? The answer shouldn't be more than a few days to a week after hours tops, and no medical student should be turning that down unless they really have something great cooking.

Doubly true for a review paper. Those things end up getting cited more than you'd think.

And finally, most importantly, writing a paper is kind of like any other skillset. You get better at it with time. Putting out some mediocre case reports/reviews to hone your writing skills and learn the nuts and bolts of using EndNote, putting together figures, submitting a paper online ... is worth it.

Thank you for the more extensive answer, it certainly expands a lot on the more simplistic assumption that seems to go around a lot. If you don't mind, do you have any thoughts on my original post above? Any opinions would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[The 805]

First of all, I think its kind of a bummer your PI is putting you in a position where you have to figure this out on your own. As you may have already surmised, the educational yield of this sort of activity is pretty low. There is no central repository for this kind of knowledge; you gain it by having had experience in the field (which is what your PI is trying to get at, I guess… but as a MS, that's kind of hard). Without knowing what your project is, its impossible to really suggest anything insightful. Assuming its radiation relevant, but not good enough to present at ASTRO (as you insinuated), you could consider submitting it to ARS, or ABS if its brachytherapy related. There are plenty of other small society meetings you could look into depending on the topic of your research (physics? rad bio?). As far as journals go, if you can't get into ASTRO then IJROBP is probably out of the question. You could consider PRO, JRON, Brachytherapy, or one of the smaller physics journals… but again, its hard to say anything insightful without knowing what your project is.

 

[MegaVoltagePhoton]

Thank you for the more extensive answer, it certainly expands a lot on the more simplistic assumption that seems to go around a lot. If you don't mind, do you have any thoughts on my original post above? Any opinions would be helpful. Thanks!

Sure. Well, I don't think I can add too much re: conferences. There's ASTRO, RSNA, ARS, and ABS. There's also AAPM. Those are all national conferences and we'd need more details about your work.

Regarding papers, impact factor is a pretty good judge. Again it is hard to answer without knowing the details of the project. A list (not necessarily complete) of specialty-specific journals (not in order but the first three are the "best" ones I would say):

Red Journal (obviously our top journal)
PRO
Green Journal (http://www.thegreenjournal.com/)
Brachytherapy
Radiation Oncology (http://www.ro-journal.com/), pay-to-publish
Medical Physics (http://www.medphys.org/)
Physics in Medicine and Biology (http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9155/)
Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics (http://www.jacmp.org/index.php/jacmp)
Medical Dosimetry (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/medical-dosimetry/)
TCRT (http://tct.sagepub.com/)
JMIRO (http://www.ranzcr.edu.au/research/jmiro)
Journal of Radiation Oncology (http://www.springer.com/medicine/oncology/journal/13566) [not in pubmed]
British Journal of Radiology (http://www.birpublications.org/loi/bjr)
Applied Radiation Oncology (http://www.appliedradiationoncology.com/) [not in pubmed]

Not all of those are on pubmed, and obviously not all of them are the best journals out there. But like I said, getting a paper published can never be worse than not getting one published (unless your work is fraudulent or something).

Also, those are just rad onc specific journals. If you have some kind of disease-specific project then there are obviously many more journals (for example, there are many urology journals that would consider a broader topic on prostate cancer, or something).

Hopefully that helps a little.

 

[BlakeGriffinFan]

Hello,

I read some of your questions and thought I would try and help you.

1) You should not present a poster of any publication that has been accepted to a formal journal, esp PubMed. Most big conferences mention this in their Abstract Guidelines. I would recommend reading specific conferences guidelines.

2) For residency purposes, Publication > Poster, unless the publication is probably a weak case report (CR) and the presentation is at ASTRO. Also, don't let it seem as if you are trying to just pad your stats rather than let your hard work speak for yourself.

3) For poster presentations, it does not have to be only a rad onc conference. Depending on the scope of your conference, you can present at any good conference. For example, if the project is melanoma-specific, find a Melanoma conference.

4) @sunealoneal. What you should do, depends on your year. I am guessing you are a first year since you have a summer. If that is true and even if it isn't but you do have 1-2 months to research, then you should do a proper project rather than case reports.

 

[sunealoneal]

Thanks. I'm finishing up a case report now, but unfortunately it's unclear if there will be a proper project available to me, hence why I was asking about review papers.

I don't have a review paper formally planned though, and it's starting to look like most reviews are solicited by the editors of the journal. Is this mostly true? Or could I try writing one based on what I learned about my case report, and try to get that submitted? It sounds like it might be a larger time commitment, and I don't want squander any.

 

[BlakeGriffinFan]

Depends on the type of review. In general, you should be asking your PI to write a review article. He/She will be able to help give you direction with that.

Is your CR rad onc related? If there are enough research papers out there to write a review article, than I am unsure how your CR would be unique enough to write about or what it would add to the existing literature. Again, I don't know what your case is about so it is hard for me to give a better assessment than this.

I would still recommend finding a true research project if you are just starting medical school. You have more than enough time to finish one. If not your PI, then another. Keep going until you find someone. Good luck either way.

 

[sunealoneal]

Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately, I'm at a DO school where actual "PI"s are rare. Lucky for me, the area I am in is sparse enough that the private practices apparently have a wider range of patients than what is typically seen. The other practice in town incidentally got back to me about a retrospective study, but that'll only work out if another student drops the project.

The report seems to be working out to be in the medical onc/path realm honestly, so I won't go that route if even if I could.

I'm a "rising second year", so I'm afraid that my next stretch of significant time wouldn't be my 4th year. I could be wrong though, is it unheard of for students to be doing some research work on the side while school is in session?

 

[MadRadLad]

First of all, I think its kind of a bummer your PI is putting you in a position where you have to figure this out on your own. As you may have already surmised, the educational yield of this sort of activity is pretty low. There is no central repository for this kind of knowledge; you gain it by having had experience in the field (which is what your PI is trying to get at, I guess… but as a MS, that's kind of hard). Without knowing what your project is, its impossible to really suggest anything insightful. Assuming its radiation relevant, but not good enough to present at ASTRO (as you insinuated), you could consider submitting it to ARS, or ABS if its brachytherapy related. There are plenty of other small society meetings you could look into depending on the topic of your research (physics? rad bio?). As far as journals go, if you can't get into ASTRO then IJROBP is probably out of the question. You could consider PRO, JRON, Brachytherapy, or one of the smaller physics journals… but again, its hard to say anything insightful without knowing what your project is.

So far i've learned a lot from the process but yeah some parts of it can be a bit of a hassle. My topic is mostly based around chart reviews of SRS patients, specifically focusing on brain tumors.

Sure. Well, I don't think I can add too much re: conferences. There's ASTRO, RSNA, ARS, and ABS. There's also AAPM. Those are all national conferences and we'd need more details about your work.

Regarding papers, impact factor is a pretty good judge. Again it is hard to answer without knowing the details of the project. A list (not necessarily complete) of specialty-specific journals (not in order but the first three are the "best" ones I would say):

Red Journal (obviously our top journal)
PRO
Green Journal (http://www.thegreenjournal.com/)
Brachytherapy
Radiation Oncology (http://www.ro-journal.com/), pay-to-publish
Medical Physics (http://www.medphys.org/)
Physics in Medicine and Biology (http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9155/)
Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics (http://www.jacmp.org/index.php/jacmp)
Medical Dosimetry (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/medical-dosimetry/)
TCRT (http://tct.sagepub.com/)
JMIRO (http://www.ranzcr.edu.au/research/jmiro)
Journal of Radiation Oncology (http://www.springer.com/medicine/oncology/journal/13566) [not in pubmed]
British Journal of Radiology (http://www.birpublications.org/loi/bjr)
Applied Radiation Oncology (http://www.appliedradiationoncology.com/) [not in pubmed]

Not all of those are on pubmed, and obviously not all of them are the best journals out there. But like I said, getting a paper published can never be worse than not getting one published (unless your work is fraudulent or something).

Also, those are just rad onc specific journals. If you have some kind of disease-specific project then there are obviously many more journals (for example, there are many urology journals that would consider a broader topic on prostate cancer, or something).

Hopefully that helps a little.

Thank you so much! As I mentioned above, my topic is on SRS for brain tumors so i've been looking at some of the journals you mentioned plus some neurology/neurosurgery ones too. I had not seen a lot of those though, so thanks for bringing them to my attention. Would it be a good idea to shoot reasonably high to start, and then submit to a lower impact journal if that doesn't work out? Or should I focus on something within my means initially?

Hello,

I read some of your questions and thought I would try and help you.

1) You should not present a poster of any publication that has been accepted to a formal journal, esp PubMed. Most big conferences mention this in their Abstract Guidelines. I would recommend reading specific conferences guidelines.

2) For residency purposes, Publication > Poster, unless the publication is probably a weak case report (CR) and the presentation is at ASTRO. Also, don't let it seem as if you are trying to just pad your stats rather than let your hard work speak for yourself.

3) For poster presentations, it does not have to be only a rad onc conference. Depending on the scope of your conference, you can present at any good conference. For example, if the project is melanoma-specific, find a Melanoma conference.

4) @sunealoneal. What you should do, depends on your year. I am guessing you are a first year since you have a summer. If that is true and even if it isn't but you do have 1-2 months to research, then you should do a proper project rather than case reports.

Thank you very much, I will keep your advice in mind. Considering how conferences sort of roll around differently based on scheduling, is it sometimes better to present that work at a conference and make updates based on feedback prior to submitting to a journal? Or is that also generally frowned upon?

 

[MadRadLad]

Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately, I'm at a DO school where actual "PI"s are rare. Lucky for me, the area I am in is sparse enough that the private practices apparently have a wider range of patients than what is typically seen. The other practice in town incidentally got back to me about a retrospective study, but that'll only work out if another student drops the project.

The report seems to be working out to be in the medical onc/path realm honestly, so I won't go that route if even if I could.

I'm a "rising second year", so I'm afraid that my next stretch of significant time wouldn't be my 4th year. I could be wrong though, is it unheard of for students to be doing some research work on the side while school is in session?

For what it's worth, i've heard of a lot of people putting in a few hours per week during M2 and getting a couple of projects done. Just work it into your schedule and don't let it affect your performance in school. Usually it sounds like they taper it off a couple months prior to Step 1 studying.

 

[sunealoneal]

Good deal. I've never done an actual project before, so I'm not sure what to expect. Thanks for that. We're a new school so the apparatus to learn about these things isn't quite there yet.