Epi 212-- upcoming May 22 session with guests speakers, and Assignments #3 and #4

Epi 212-- upcoming May 22 session with guests speakers, and Assignments #3 and #4

by Alison Huang -

To all enrollees in Epi 212, Publishing & Presenting Clinical Research:

Thank you for submitting your second course assignment at the beginning of this week. It's been a pleasure reading your manuscript introductions and gaining a deeper appreciation for the rationale for your projects! Some of you have already received feedback on your assignments, and the rest of you will receive comments over the next week.

As a reminder, our next course session on May 22 will be another two-part session. From 1:15 to 2:00 pm, I will speak about strategies for writing effective results and discussion sections of manuscripts. Then starting at 2:00 pm, we will have a special session facilitated by two guest speakers-- Margot Kushel, Professor of Medicine, and Laura Kurtzman, UCSF Senior Public Information Representative -- about preparing press releases and disseminating research findings in the lay press.

While there's no required advance preparation for this session, Dr. Kushel and Ms. Kurtzman have suggested that you may find the session especially useful if you come to class prepared to:

1)   Discuss a research project that you are working on that may be newsworthy –(i.e., give a one liner of the research and describe why you think it may be newsworthy); or
2)   Read or listen to mainstream news (NYT, Wash Post, NPR, SF Chronicle) in the next week, pay attention to medical research stories that got covered, and come prepared to discuss why you think the reporter decided to cover the story.

For some of you who will soon be wrapping up research studies, this is a great opportunity to talk with a member of the UCSF news office who can help you start to prepare a UCSF-sponsored press release about your work.

Also, as a reminder, course assignment #3 is due by noon on May 22. This takes the form of a draft table and a draft figure, which present the same research data in two ways, along with brief text to explain the findings. As always, please use the assignment template posted and upload your assignment directly onto the on-line syllabus.

I also want to mention that as a follow-up to Dr. Louise Aronson's recent session on public medical writing, there is an optional assignment #4 about writing research-related perspective or opinion pieces. Those of you who are interested in getting feedback from Dr. Aronson on your own draft perspective piece can e-mail your document to her directly; or you can upload it onto the Epi 212 course site using the Optional Assignment #4 Upload link, and I will forward it to her.

Best wishes,

Alison Huang, MD, MAS

Epi 212 course director