Welcome to the Thought Broadcast, the Australasian psychiatry podcast run by trainees. Here in this episode, Granny Flats, Boats, and a Block of Flats, we continue our discussion with Jeremy Cooper, the chair of the Scholarly Project subcommittee. The conversation picks up with Jeremy talking about the college's intentions for the Scholarly Project and the hope that people do enjoy their research experience. We advise that you go back and listen to the episode start early to make the most of this conversation.

What we really hope is that people at the end of the Scholarly Project will have had a good experience, a really enjoyable and um, you know, um uh you know productive experience, will want to do more research and will be interested in research the rest of their careers. Similarly, with the psychotherapy case, we're hoping people have a good experience with their supervisor and with their patient and will enjoy it and would be interested, you know, in what psychotherapy has to offer patients and you know might consider doing it in their clinical work in their career. What we don't want is people to have a miserable experience and you know, and find it, you know, it's it's um a disaster for them, and they don't want to ever go near psychotherapy or science or scientific endeavour again, you know. So it's really important that that that you know we don't take on a patient that's too hard in psychotherapy or you know it's way beyond our skill level. And similarly, we don't take on a scholarly project that is too vast or complex or or um you know or um unresolved, you know, that we're gonna have a bad outcome and a bad experience, you know. So we want everyone wants it to be a success and to and to build confidence and to build um skills, but also hopefully an interest for the future.

Yeah, you spoke about Goldilocks when trying to find the right um subject of a of a literature review, and it's sort of the same thing. You want that kind of project that's not too hard, not too easy, and um is going to offer you all of those things. I think um Michael was in the same boat as myself. We we both got through the scholarly project by exemption, and um I know that some people do choose to go down that pathway. What are your thoughts on that as a pathway? And um do you have any advice for trainees looking at that um option?

Yeah, so there's a little bit of controversy within our committee in that um you know, there's one point of view that if the ultimate goal ought to be to produce a piece of work that could be published in a in a peer-reviewed relevant journal, you know, let's say Australian psychiatry, for instance, and there's another view that some some things that might get published are not at the standard that we have set in our college as a scholarly project. Now, bearing in mind a published article is a is a is a manuscript, it's a piece of paper, you know, a piece of writing. It doesn't necessarily reflect all the work that went into the project that lies behind it. But journals have very strict word limits and very strict rules on what you can say and how many diagrams and graphs you can have, and it's much usually much briefer than what a scholarly project word limit is. And it is often harder to write less than to write more. Uh so one trap is um can an article carry all that uh information that it to to satisfy the examiners that the project's of a sufficient uh scholarly uh scope, you know, to to meet the requirements. So we don't currently um pass it just because it's published, you know. We we do expect um the the project line behind the published article to be of a certain uh scope. And so what we can do sometimes is people can provide additional information, you know, uh about what they've done, which isn't covered in the article. Especially some articles, some journals require very short articles. Um there's there's the issue of authorship. So ideally you're the first author, then there's no debate that you're key to the key to the piece of work. But some pieces of research are uh uh sub-projects in a bigger project, there might be other authors. Um but what I encourage people to do is if they can get their name get their initials mentioned in the in the text of the article, which often do, you know, often in the methods section, there's absolutely no doubt that the all the authors understood that that Oliver had a role to play, you know, key role to play in that piece of work. That that's one way to sort of really try and make sure. Um but it it's currently um it's the examiner the examiners. You have two examiners, you know, if if one um if one isn't happy, another one looks at it, but you know but you have to satisfy the examiners that the published piece represents a s um a report on a scholarly project. So it's not a guarantee.

Jeremy, do you think it's better to plan from the beginning to apply for an exemption or can you go through the normal process of the scholarly project?

I I absolutely think you should. Yeah, I think you I think a lot of people all they want to do is get their fellowship and get on with their careers. And um, as we I think we're commenting before this um podcast started, you know, it's it's not expected, you know, when you go to apply for jobs in psychiatry at the moment in Australia and New Zealand that you have publications in scientific journals necessarily. It helps. You have it on your CV is not a requirement, but it's but it's in other disciplines, in specialist disciplines in medicine, it really is these days, and probably things will move that way for uh for our profession as well. But um I think you should have that objective. And often people start projects thinking, I just want to get this done and submit it and get my fellowship. And as they get into it, they find they're really enjoying it, the project's working out really well, and they and then they would you know they they need to get it, they should get it published. But if they haven't done the necessary foundation work of getting the relevant um ethics approvals and things, then some journals won't take it. Um so we even had one one project that was put forward for the award a couple of years back, but but it couldn't get published in isolation psychiatry because they never underlying um um ethics and approval and things when it before it started. So I think every every project you should consider it might be published. And um sometimes you'll be surprised that you know there really will be an interest to publish it by the time you're finished. But it's a bit late to go back if you haven't done those foundations.

One of the things I've been surprised by is people don't realise the cycle of publishing. That is, you might submit to three or four different journals, not because it's a bad article, but it might not match the journal's uh guidelines, it might not match the domain that they're interested in. And so you can go through multiple iterations and you're you're largely at the the uh mercy of the reviewer who might take a month to do their review and then ask for three sentences to be changed. Whereas I think the if you go through the uh normal scholarly project process, it's much more clear what you have to do when you would submit, and then you might get asked to do one revision, but you're unlikely to have that that longer period of time. Yeah, yeah.

So hopefully if you follow the the the uh directions of the um the guidelines properly and you you know and you do it all within the word limit and you do it all according to what's requested, you should be passed, and you should know that you'll be passed on a certain timeline. But as you say, you know, as an argument, I think, as you're saying, Andy, to to you know, I think what you're driving at is you know to do it, submit it as a project and then you get it published later, because then you can't got all the time in the world to choose the right journal and to work it up. You'll have that, you'll have for a start, you'll have the re the reviews from the uh our markers, and then you can take it elsewhere to get advice and and you know get go. You should always take a journal any piece of work you've done, you've spent you know, six months, nine months, a year of your of your time on it, you really want it to be published in the very best journal you can.

I don't know if anyone's got any questions that they're burning to ask. I mean, one thing that I thought might be nice for people to hear was whether or not there's any support out there for supervisors. We talk a lot about trainees finding a supervisor and getting good advice on how to run the project, but if someone's running into trouble and the project isn't progressing the way that um everyone was hoping it would for whatever reason, is there anywhere that supervisors can go for advice? Um, maybe approaching the college or directors of training or something in that respect?

Um well, some some uh some of their jurisdictions have, you know, um, like in Victoria, I think they have a subcommittee with some advice from some academics, uh, so that's someone they can go to. Um, and I might just point out that that that before we get onto that topic, it is a bit of a funny hybrid system because when you submit your project and you know, with your supervisor, it goes to the branch training committee and they approve it. But when it's marked, it's marked by a different committee, the scholarly project subcommittee. So there's an inherent risk in that that the two committees might see things differently. Um but during the process of um preparing the project, the the BTC I think is the first port of call, and they can they have got resources and people they can call on, and sometimes they'll ask us questions, you know, about specific things, but there might it depends on what the problem is. But and and the BTC and the and the directors of training could probably help trainees, you know, get an additional supervisor or or support the supervisor they have um best better than probably the subcommittee does because they'll have more knowledge about the um conditions on the ground where where you are.

Yeah. So you can bring a supervisor in sort of halfway through, three quarters of the way through through a project. Is that no issues with that?

Why not? I don't think so. Because you might because you know, these are novice, in many most cases novice researchers, so you're learning as you go along, and you might find, oh, you know, I need I need some additional expertise. I didn't know I needed before. What I would ask uh or advise trainees to do though is not to hesitate to go back to the branch training committee and make adapt uh adaptations to their um uh proposal, because if it's changing to a new what it what we do see sometimes is the proposal is nothing like the project that's delivered at the end. So if someone said they're gonna build a granny flat, but they end up building um you know a sailing boat, you know. Well, that's not a granny flat. You know, and the council wouldn't accept it, neither will we, you know, so it's um it needs to be what it's about to be. But it's quite a right to say I actually want to explore the barrier reef, so uh granny flat's not going to cut it. I needed a boat, so I'm changing my proposal to a boat. You know, um, you know, you get what I mean? So it's it's it's quite a right to change it. Um and I think um and the and what we do now, uh we introduced this a few years ago, is when the um project is submitted, not the exemptions, but when you do a project and it's submitted, the the um actual proposal which was approved by the training committee comes with it. So that because I had a problem earlier where um examiners were saying I don't like this project, they didn't do it right, they should have done something else, and I had to say, well hang on, but that wasn't what the proposal was that was submitted, so you're gonna have to mark it against the proposal that was accepted by the training committee. And that seems to have helped that problem to some degree. Um, but um, but you do need to therefore check that your proposal still describes what you end up doing. Now, within reason, you might make changes, but that can be the sort of thing that might be put in your limitations or in your methodology, you know, things you might have had to change or adjust as you went along. That's that's can be quite a legitimate part of a research project within limits. But if you really make find you have to have some other significant changes to your methodology, you really ought to be uh updating your proposal and getting that approved before you submit at the end.

I'm wondering, uh Andy, if you've got any um questions from a supervisor's point of view.

Oh look, uh Jeremy's done done a great job of anticipating all of the tricky questions that I had uh prepared. Um I would hark back to the the conversation about the regional training hubs as a potential source for the sort of supervision that you might uh find useful. So a lot of academic experience, obviously, at universities, uh including the sort of forum where you might present an idea to a group with expertise in that area and get feedback on it before you go through that process.

Yeah, and it can be like a like a speed dating, couldn't it? You could actually find yourself a nice um supervisor in the process, yeah.

Absolutely right. And the the uh universities are looking for ways to uh develop collaboration with clinical units. Because of course, if they develop a relationship with a registrar who's interested in research, that can then lead on to some really interesting projects.

That's that's really uh good, Andy. And I think every in every region or you know, state and territory in New Zealand there'll be there'll be um hubs and and and different groupings that you can tap into. And um it's important for trainees, they may not realise this, but these creatures called academic researchers actually need to produce research. They have to publish or they perish. So I think um that's part of what I'm yeah, the the f this um uh idea I was trying to describe before of pitching your idea to different forums because you might well find someone who just hears about your story, doesn't know you, doesn't know what you were doing, and can becomes interested and can help you. And um it can be really mutually beneficial. But if you don't put it out there, they'll never know until you publish it one day, you know. But if you do. Um and um, you know, and that's too late for them to have helped you back once you've done that.

Yeah, I think um this idea, Jeremy, of the pitch has me thinking about what trainees can do for each other because I I mean I'm lucky I I work in a in a larger hospital regionally, so we've got you know around 20 or so registrars in our cohort, but um and obviously not everyone is so lucky to have um lots of people around, but you know, you could always start by pitching pitching to each other, pitching to senior registrars, pitching to people who have been through the process before, and they can give advice and then you move on to other forums. And um, I mean that could I just thinking are ways of kind of developing a better culture in different training hubs around um how to how to get people into their scholarly projects and get them off to a good start. I think registrars can really draw on each other for that as well. So yeah, it's um seems to me like a really good way to get things going.

And that's it, and then Ollie, that's exactly the reason why the scholarly project was brought into the training to encourage that kind of activity, that sort of cross-pollination, that discussion, to make it part of every trainee's you know, daily life that they're thinking about research and about um you know how you might do a project, how you might answer uh research questions. That's what we we hope will happen. And yeah, it's true that some services have less um you know academic resources than others, but because of the through the sorts of things Andy's talking about, it doesn't necessarily matter. It means you can s you can seek it out for yourself.

Yeah, and I think what we're learning through this process being um Michael and myself and Brian is that you know there are trainees nationally and you can connect with people nationally, and Zoom and other other um interfaces are allowing us to do that. So there's sort of I don't know, there's a world of opportunity out there for people to start kind of that cross-pollination process.

So I think we're hoping a bit that with releasing this podcast and developing some resources on the uh on the journal's website that we can start m facilitating some of these um uh processes and get trainees talking to each other and build some networks up, particularly for those who are outside of the major metropolitan centres.

Yeah, that's right, Michael. And the pro and the college is trying to get uh we very much encourage people, if anyone is listening who's finished their scholarly project, you know, we're very much interested in people allowing us to put them up in a library so people can see all the different projects that have been done, because there's a lot of accumulating now, not all of them get published, and you may not be able to find them through referencing systems that they are scholarly projects, you know, unless you knew that. Um so um, and certainly as we were saying before, talking to people who've just recently done it can be really useful. Doesn't mean you have to do the same topic or project they did, but it just the the process, what how they went about it, uh is really useful. Um and uh looking at what other people have done gives you ideas of what you could do. Um it also gives you an idea of the scope that's feasible or practical in a certain period of time, because we haven't got five years to to work on the project unless we start right in the first year, you know. Um it's gonna have to be something that can be knocked over in a year or two, you know, to be feasible. Um but it could be the it could be the first part of a bigger project, you know. It can't even you can you could even have your you know, it could be a literature review of for for a future PhD, for instance. You know, there's there's lots of ways you can build into other things. So if you think of that building analogy, you might decide to build a block of flats, you know, but you've got to start somewhere um with the first flat, for instance, you know. So um it's that same principle of thinking ahead and making sure you get the foundations right.

Yeah, absolutely. Um I suppose we may be getting towards the end of our conversation. We'd be interested, Jeremy, what was your first research project? Can you remember back that far?

Yeah, well, mine was when I did my doctorate, um, I did a um a survey. Uh well, I I was fortunate, you know, in Melbourne in in a inner city hospital, and I was fortunate that some colleagues who were senior academics had a project and they could see a spin-off from it, if you like, and I was offered an opportunity to do some research linked to my an existing project was already funded. So um it was about um they were they were looking at men with prostate cancer and the sort of psychosocial impact of prostate cancer, and the idea I came up with was to survey the the uh partners of the men with prostate cancer, so to find out what it was like to be the partner of a man with prostate cancer. So I and I did a uh I did a mixed uh quantitative and qualitative design, so I was f getting them to fill out survey, I was filling out surveys, you know, with tick boxes, you know, and like at scales and things, but also asking them men some focused questions. So if it comes to regrets, that was probably all a bit too complicated. Um but uh but it did it I managed to because you know, because it's um quite it was quite a lot of work, you know, to do all of that. And and I think back, if you can believe it, I was tape recording what the but uh what they were um it turned out they were all women. I mean they didn't have to be, but they turned out to be all women, they're all female partners. Um but I tape recorded my you know focused interview with them on if you can believe it on a little um magnetic tape that you know when I was doing this, so you know, the little tapes everywhere. Now, these days you'd be using your phone, you know, or you know, it's so much easier. Um and you can just and with digital digital technology, it's so much better. So one thing um I don't know that was available when I was doing it, it may have been, but you know, in in retrospect, I would have embraced any technology that's available. Always go for technology because it can save you so much time, you know, and and um but uh so it was a lot of transcribing of um of these uh interviews, and uh so it was a it was opportunity. Look, I I wasn't particularly I was I was interested in CL psychiatry at the time and see and doing research in that area, but cancer wasn't a particular interest of mine, but it just was opportunistic because there was already a project handy with people I knew, and there was an opportunity at that time. So uh that sort of connects to what I was trying to say before. You know, it's it it might have to compromise it there, might be opportunities that are worth grabbing when you do your scholarly project to collaborate with other people, which might not be exactly what you want, but it might be worth um being a bit flexible to make the most of opportunities. Um, but you do want it to be something you have a sufficient passion and interest in to to see you through, which which I think some another point I would make is um with the scholarly project, some of the projects that I've seen are really interesting, original ideas, you know, breaking new ground. And I I do try to encourage my um subcommittee members who are examiners to to weigh that up when they mark things because um if if you're doing something that's really novel and new and no one else has done it, it is harder to get really tight methodology and get everything right. But if you're breaking new ground, that should be part of the thing that's being um being considered in weighing up how how how how adequate it is, you know, whether it should pass basically, you know, is if it's something that's very novel and new, um, that's a lot harder to do than something that's you know basically someone did the project in England and I'm just gonna do it in Australia now. So I'm just basically doing that. That also is acceptable because it's a different population, but it's not as imaginative, it's not breaking up breaking new ground, it's not um having that innovation. So we try to try to get uh both with exemption and also with um the projects. If people some some trainees are coming up with really interesting new questions, and I think um you know we really don't want to discourage that. You know, it's harder to do things that are new because you've inventing it as you go along. But you do need good supervisors to help you and to make sure you don't get lost, you know.