When completing a PhD you really are undertaking an apprenticeship in research; it is a beginning not an end in itself. You hope to contribute an original contribution to the field, in my case, as a qualitative researcher, to build understanding and in the long run, improve the doctor’s journey in the hope of ultimately improving the patient experience. Promoting your research outcome to the broader academic and clinical community requires publication dependent on peer review.

Rigorous supervision, demanding milestones and the scrutiny of internationally renowned examiners prepares you little for the publication journey. After submitting to a recognized journal and receiving a less than favourable review of my 5000 word summary of my PhD – where I agonized over what to and what not to include, of my 80,000 word thesis – I felt a total failure, a fraud. It was with enormous trepidation I picked myself up, brushed myself off and carried on … determined that the interns’ voices in my study be heard.

Publishing with MedEdPublish, also has its fair share of vulnerability. In submitting your article you submit yourself to open, post-publication review from a cadre of reviewers, they comment and rate you online for all to see. There is a potential vulnerability for the reviewer too, as their review may place them at odds with their fellow reviewers.

I remember pressing the final submit button with enormous angst, going to bed with a knot in my stomach, and my eyes squeezed tight with tension, making a promise to myself that I would not look at the results overnight. Tossing and turning, I broke my promise by about 2am!!! To my delight the publication resonated with reviewers and readers. Approximately three hundred reads over the first 24 hours, and constructive feedback, with predominantly positive reviews. The paper, 'Compassion, the first emotion ditched when I’m busy’. The struggle to maintain our common humanity, has gone on to be nudging 5000 reads and 8 reviews, rating an average of 4/5, but more importantly, medical students and interns have shown enormous interest in the journey of the eight interns who I followed over a year. Some have written to me sharing how reading the article has supported them in feeling less alone in their struggle.

Yes, I made the mistake of not providing enough detail of my theoretical approach, in the summarized paper, in preference to sharing the interns’ narrative, and yes, with a few more years’ experience, I understand how I could have better positioned my theoretical approach, but this does not diminish the lived experience of the junior doctors in sharing their journey in their own words.

To receive MedEdPublish’s Best Publication for 2018-19 at AMEE in Vienna, was the surprising icing on the cake, giving me the opportunity to attend AMEE in Glasgow in 2020. I have just returned from the Asia Pacific Med Ed Conference in Singapore after the article won the University of Notre Dame’s National Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academia’s $2000 award for article which 'most influenced learners'.

So for me, while the feedback from the original journal highlighted where I could improve, MedEdPublish engaged me in a constructive on-line learning dialogue, while providing me with a platform to share my study and the interns’ stories, all within the broad embrace of a supportive, robust, transparent and nurturing community of practice, for which I am very grateful.