Last month on the Royal Free Library blog we provided inspiration for our visitors with the fascinating piece of tangible history that is Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s desk. If you have found yourself sitting here in contemplation, you may have noticed the striking bust that shares this space on the first floor of the Library (pictured). This bust represents the image of Dame Shelia Sherlock (1918-2001), another hugely monumental figure in the history of medicine.

Sheila Sherlock was born in Dublin in 1918 and brought up in Folkestown in the United Kingdom. In 1930s Britain it was still quite difficult for women students to enter into medicine, and Sheila applied to and was rejected by several medical schools. She ultimately received an offer from the University of Edinburgh in 1936, graduating five years later at the top of her class. Sheila’s specialist subject was in liver disease, and her immense talent was quickly reflected in her career path.

In 1948, at the age of thirty, she was appointed lecturer and honorary consultant physician at Hammersmith, setting up a new liver unit which attracted research fellows from many countries. In 1959, at the age of forty-one, she became Britain’s first female Professor of Medicine, when she was appointed to the chair at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School. At this stage in her career she had gained an international reputation as a pioneer in the new field of hepatology. She remained Chair of Medicine at the Royal Free until 1983. In March 2008, the liver treatment service at the Royal Free Hospital was re-named the Sheila Sherlock Liver Centre in her honour. The staff education centre in the hospital is also named after her.

So, on your next visit to the Library, take a moment to pause on the first floor and give a nod to one of the most instrumental and inspiring figures in Royal Free history.

Sources:

MCINTYRE, N. 2014. How British women became doctors: the story of the Royal Free Hospital and its Medical School, United Kingdom: Wenrowave Press.

ROYAL FREE LONDON NHS FOUNDATION TRUST. The Sheila Sherlock Liver Centre [Online]. Available: https://www.royalfree.nhs.uk/services/services-a-z/liver-services/the-sheila-sherlock-liver-centre/ [Accessed 20th February 2017].

Visitors to the Royal Free Library may have noticed our display on the ground floor, full of historical tit-bits on Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She is a hugely influential figure in the history of medicine in Britain, and has a special connection to the Library here in the Royal Free Hospital.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain, being enrolled on the Medical Register in 1866. Born in 1836 at a time when it was considered highly improper for a young lady to desire to work at all (never mind in the controversial field of medicine) each step of the way in her pursuit of a career was a battle fought against prejudice and established tradition.

In July 1866 Elizabeth opened the St Mary’s Dispensary for Poor Women and Children in Seymour Place. Six years later she founded the New Hospital for Women, where women came from all over London for the opportunity to be seen by one of the all-women staff.

In 1877, the Royal Free board of governors agreed that the Hospital would be the first to allow women students access to the wards and out-patient department, opening its doors to students from the London School of Medicine for Women, founded by Sophia Jex-Blake and her supporters. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was appointed dean of the London School of Medicine for Women in 1883, becoming the first woman dean of a recognised medical school in the U.K.  In 1898, a permanent association between the two institutions was agreed, becoming the London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine.

Here in the Royal Free Library you may have noticed a beautiful antique desk on the first floor next the quiet study area (pictured). This desk is a popular spot for students to study at – imbued with an eventful history, perhaps they feel inspired without quite knowing why! This desk belonged to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson herself, and was donated to the Royal Free Hospital by her. The strong sense of purpose she must have felt as she worked at this desk lives on with our medical students today, forging paths of their own in the dynamic world of medicine.

Sources: AMIDON, L. A. 1996. An illustrated history of the Royal Free Hospital, London, Special Trustees for the Royal Free Hospital.

This post is for all budding authors out there, whether you’re a clinician thinking about publishing the results of a trial or a case report, or a PhD student looking to publish based on your research.

Millions of articles are submitted to biomedical journals every year. Sadly a high percentage of these articles fail to make it through peer review, resulting in the heartbreak of rejection for their authors.

How can you avoid having this fate befall you? There are a few things you can do to maximise your chances of getting published. One of those things is to think carefully about which journal you submit to, making sure you choose something relevant and appropriate.

Here, to help you plan your submission, are our top 5 tips on choosing a journal…..

1. Start thinking about possible journals BEFORE you start writing

If possible start thinking about potential journals when you’re at the planning stage of your research project. The earlier in your research that you can identify potential journals, the easier it is for you to build any article requirements those journals have in to your project – see tip 5 for more detail.

2. Which journals publish the papers that you’re building on with your own research?

If you’ve been doing research on a particular topic for a while, you’re probably already aware of what the key, influential papers on that topic are. Most importantly, you’ll also know which journals those papers have been published in. Noting which journals the papers that you are referencing in your own research on have been published in can be a quick way to identify a likely candidate for your own article.

3. Search bibliographic databases to identify popular journals for your field

If you’re struggling to identify existing articles on a similar topic to your own, run a quick search on a database such as Medline, Embase or Web of Science. Looking through the results of that search should help you to draw up a list of the main journals publishing in that field.

4. Try using an article matching tool

There are freely available tools which use algorithms to match text against relevant journals. One example is JANE: Journal/Author Name Estimator.  JANE allows you to paste in a paragraph of text, such as an abstract, and then analyses that text, giving you a list of suggested journals which are a good match topic-wise.  Some publishers such as Elsevier and Springer also have similar freely available tools.

5. Check the journal’s guidance for authors

Once you have a potential journal in mind, check the submission guidance for authors for details of required format and article types accepted. Even if you think you have found a journal that is a great match for your article, you still need to make sure that the type of article you want to submit is one that they accept. Most journals make the instructions for authors readily available on their website.