In 2009 I was granted the privilege of taking a sabbatical leave from my clinical duties to pursue (among a lot of other things) “scholarly activities” within an exchange project between the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and Shantou University Medical College in southern China. I had been project leader for this exchange for about 4 years, and as part of the exchange’s educational activities involving faculty and learners at both our institutions, I had the pleasure of traveling to Shantou several times to help the medical college with curriculum development and teaching.
I had always identified myself as a clinician and a teacher, but suddenly I was a “scholar” and, frankly, was somewhat intimidated by the label. Sure, I had worked on a few studies, had a couple of things published, and had been collecting data on our exchange, but somehow the term conjured up images of strolling across the Oxford green, robes billowing behind.
Fortunately, as I went through my sabbatical year, I came to discover that being a “scholar” wasn’t quite as daunting as I had thought, and that what I had been doing with the Shantou exchange had been scholarly activity all along. For those brave souls considering the scholarly path, here are a few lessons I learned from my sabbatical year.
1. It helps to have a clear idea of what scholarly activity actually is. This sounds obvious, but it took me a drive to the lake to figure this one out. To put it metaphorically:
A man is walking down the beach and he sees a rock. He pauses and thinks, “I wonder what’s under that rock?” He starts to dig and discovers a fish skeleton (OK, a treasure chest if you’re ambitious).
So far we just have research, which is only a part of scholarly activity. Here’s the full deal:
The man sees another fellow walking down the beach and yells: “HEY! Want to see what’s under this rock?”
Of course we could have the guy doing an Internet search, then discovering it is a rare fish for the area, then bringing the bones to people on a beach in China, but let’s not push the metaphor too far ....
2. Carpe diem ... but be prepared! To push the metaphor (sorry!): Don’t walk by that rock! Plus, be ready to share what you’ve found. The Shantou exchange was a “right place, right time” opportunity, and our department was both fortunate and astute enough to recognize it and to offer our assistance. Makes one wonder how many opportunities one has missed, though.
3. Work on something you’re passionate about. Remember some of those medical school projects you did? There’s nothing worse than being midway through a project you really don’t care about. I’m a big proponent of using cultural interfaces to improve our world’s sorry state, and thoughts of promoting something I truly was interested in carried me through all the deathly dull times sitting behind a desk and writing.
4. You’re doing it anyway. Interestingly, it doesn’t take too much extra effort to turn a project into a study—you still need to write a proposal, still should be keeping track of your project outcomes, and will likely still need to write it up for someone. Yes, there are a few extra “hoops” (early ethics approval comes to mind), but I’d say if you stay organized it’s about 30% extra work.
5. Find and heed a voice of wisdom. I was fortunate to know several experienced researchers to run ideas by and receive guidance from. The key is to actually listen to these people (remember what I said about early ethics approval?), as they will actually save you a lot of work. Monthly coffee meetings are essential. (You should pay.)
6. Learn the basics of Excel. Saving your data becomes a breeze once you’ve figured out how to make a spreadsheet, especially using some of the automated functions. Plus, you’ll be able to easily compile your data in a table or chart when you have to write it up or present it.
7. A statistician is your friend. If you are like me, you are not a number cruncher; but if you belong to a university department, chances are there will be a statistician available, either in your research office or on retainer elsewhere. I was able to access such a person, who was able to perform the appropriate tests with the raw data and, most important, explain what the numbers all meant. Which leads me to ...
8. You’ll never forget the first time you achieve statistical significance. Yippee!
9. One page a day keeps the stress away. Did I mention I hate scholarly writing? But I’ve learned to put something down each day when writing a paper to avoid that overwhelmed feeling that leads to nothing getting done. It helps to book writing sessions on your schedule. Finally ...
10. Scholarly activity begets new scholarly opportunities. It’s amazing to see the number of kindred spirits who come forward at conferences or via e-mail once you start to share what you’ve found “under the rocks.” Suddenly you’re part of a community of potential resource people and collaborators in an area you are passionate about (see number 3), and you’re having a great time working together. They might even help with the writing!
My sabbatical turned out to be a wonderful career-and life-defining year. One outcome is that I’m now happy to add “scholar” to my list of family physician “hats.” See you on the beach!
Acknowledgments
I thank Dr Alan Katz for his encouragement and support during the writing of this article, and Dr Jamie Boyd and Saydee, the wonder dog, for agreeing to the photo shoot.
Footnotes
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Competing interests
None declared
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