Getting Published (More) Quickly

When I led the trauma research program at a Level I trauma center, the fastest research project I ever pulled off took 9 months. In January one of my trauma surgeons had a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). Thankfully the study design went through the IRB relatively fast and by April we were collecting data. In July we started writing, and an eager team was able to pull together a manuscript in a month.

The paper was submitted on a random afternoon in September ... and accepted without revision in 2 hours. At a really good journal. (Link) It was a hot topic at the time, not a lot was published on it, and one of the authors was a national leader in the area.

This experience is not the norm. But it hits on a few key principles of trauma research.

First, select your topic wisely. Find a research question that is trending but the literature is lagging. Think about what the national trauma community is talking about and build a project around it. Reflect on things your hospital is doing differently or a way that you represent a specific niche trauma population.

Second, make sure the topic hasn't been exhausted. Sometimes a really great manuscript gets rejected because a journal recently published a similar study. Or a topic has been overly analyzed and journals are no longer interested in accepting papers on this topic. In this situation, unfortunately, a team is left with two options: find a really obscure, low impact journal that will accept it OR bin it. Neither option feels good, but binning a study can mean that months of work were for naught. (This is if success is only defined as publication, which it is in the world of ACS research requirements.)

Third, build a robust research team. If a team has distinct expertise (someone who generates great ideas, someone who is a statistical guru, someone who can write a paper in their sleep), you are more likely to complete a project without breaking down at one of the research stages. You can't get things done if you have too many idea people and no one to write!

Fourth, have fun. The project referred to in this example was fun. It was prospective research and involved nearly a thousand participants. I attended almost every data collection session and can say I enjoyed almost every one of them. The study team and participants had fun, learned something new, and felt like they were making a difference.

Research is hard, time-consuming, and nearly always takes way longer than expected. There are several things out of your control, especially in the publication and journal review stage. But setting yourself up for success can make a big difference.