CV Polymerase: A Publication Primer for Young Pathology Faculty Members Open Access

Scholarly publication is an important facet of career development in an academic environment, regardless of one's blend of diagnostic, research (basic or clinical), and teaching endeavors. A young faculty member's publication record gets judged on both quantity and quality; factors influencing the latter judgment include the impact factor of journals where papers are published and the focus/coherence of the body of work. Another major factor is one's place in the lineup of authors; though any publication is valuable, first- and senior-author papers get particularly heavy consideration in promotion/tenure decisions.¹  Though being the first author is often viewed as the plum prize by young faculty members, senior authorship is at least as important; it implies not only an integral involvement in the work being published but also a role as mentor for the other authors.

If the young faculty member has a strong senior departmental mentor, journal articles and book chapters are often written with the neophyte as first author and the mentor as senior. If such a mentor is unavailable, or departs suddenly (as occurred for the senior author relatively early in his faculty career), other avenues need to be explored. The exploration isn't always easy, but it can play an extraordinarily valuable role in one's career growth.²  The following are suggestions for routes to first/senior authorship based on successful past endeavors.

• 1.

  Find a pathology trainee (fellow, resident, pathologist assistant student) with an interest in your area, identify a project, and write it up with the trainee as first author and you as author. The project could be something squarely in the middle of your area of interest/expertise, but also consider getting a bit out of your comfort zone. Possible areas of fertile crossover are subdisciplines other than yours in which the trainee plans to specialize, subdisciplines in which the trainee has recently rotated, and the borderline between anatomic and clinical pathology.

Book chapters are another potential area for fruitful collaborations with a resident (and an opportunity to learn a lot about areas where you don't necessarily consider yourself an expert, at least initially). It's good to select someone with good organizational skills for this type of project.

• 2.

  Mentor a trainee in another department (or outside the medical school entirely) who has an interest in pathology. In one of the senior author's primary areas (renal pathology), clinical trainees, particularly nephrology fellows, are expected to learn a lot of pathology, and see a good bit of it on their board examinations. It's pretty easy to get them interested in collaborative projects. In working with our clinical colleagues, it's sometimes necessary to be proactive in proposing that papers on diagnostic subjects be written from the pathologist's perspective (and with pathologist first/senior authorship) rather than the clinician's.³ 

• 3.

  Find a young faculty colleague with shared interests at about your level in another department, ideally someone without a senior mentor who insists on directing the agenda, and write papers with the colleague, with one of you as first author and the other as senior author (perhaps even alternating). This can also work with someone at or near your level in your own department, with the 2 of you splitting the work and sharing the credit. Collaborations with strongly mentored coworkers can also be fruitful, but the mentor will often want to be senior author on all of the manuscripts, leaving only one choice position (first author), which will generally go to the person being mentored.

• 4.

  Collaborate with an extramural colleague (eg, someone you've met at meetings, or a former faculty colleague or trainee who has moved elsewhere) on a paper. It can also be someone you've never met, either someone recommended/introduced by a mutual contact, someone you follow on social media, or someone contacted de novo; it's surprising how a call to a total stranger can sometimes kindle a productive interaction. We've had several collaborations of this sort, some as the senior member of the team and some as the junior member. Frequently, they involve unusual/uncommon clinical problems where it takes more than one center to accumulate enough cases to draw meaningful conclusions.

• 5.

  Find a senior faculty colleague with a stock of ideas who is willing to bestow one or more of them on you to write up, either as first author or as senior author with a trainee as first author. There are several reasons a senior colleague might be amenable to doing this, including preoccupation with other things (especially administrative duties), lack of keen interest in the idea (peripheral to his or her work, area he or she is transitioning out of), and impending move to another institution with change in career focus (again, often administrative). In some instances, he or she may simply have overlooked a potential audience or forum for his or her ideas; the current editorial is actually an illustration of this principle. Occasionally, you'll simply find someone who sees the development of young faculty mentors as part of his or her academic mission, and concludes that facilitating senior authorship for a young colleague is a good way to accomplish this.⁴  We've been on the receiving end of a few opportunities like this, and have in turn bestowed a few.

One final tip—it is important at the outset to establish clear responsibilities, expectations for authorship, and any deadlines. Doing so helps ensure productive and mutually rewarding collaborations. Write on!