The Thought Broadcast
The Thought Broadcast primarily aims to demystify the Scholarly Project and humanise research by sharing the trainee experience. We will focus on some of the stories behind successful projects, including how the authors came up with ideas and transformed these into published research. Additionally, to complement the podcast series and better support trainees, we will hear from consultant psychiatrists who are experienced in publishing and research, and in supervising and examining the Scholarly Project.
As The Thought Broadcast develops, we hope to expand the podcast to discuss a wide range of research-related content with other trainees and early career psychiatrists. We hope that The Thought Broadcast can be an interactive experience with trainees from across Australia and New Zealand getting involved, and shaping the podcast in the direction that will benefit them the most.
The Thought Broadcast
An Interview with Bryan Bui: “Observation to Publication”
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The first episode of this trainee generated podcast series explores the journey of an original research project from real-world clinical observation through to publication. Focussing on the scholarly project of podcast co-creator and Associate Trainee Editor of Australasian Psychiatry Dr Bryan Bui(1), the conversation demonstrates how trainees can find meaningful research opportunities in their routine clinical care. Dr Bui is also candid about the challenges, and great benefits, of conducting research in a remote training location. This start to the series exemplifies that through conversation we can demystify the scholarly project and humanise the research experience. Episode 1 also introduces Dr Oliver Robertson and Dr Andrew Amos as hosts of The Thought Broadcast, while Dr Michael Weightman was unavailable for recording but was integral in the creation of the series.
1. Bui TA, Wijesekera N. Unemployment and the rate of psychoactive-substance-related psychiatric hospital admission in regional Queensland: An observational, longitudinal study. Australas Psychiatry 2019; 27(4):388-391. DOI: 10.1177/1039856219859265
Music: https://freesound.org/people/ShadyDave/sounds/277375/
Disclaimer:
This podcast is provided to you for information purposes only and to provide a broad public understanding of various mental health topics. The podcast may represent the views of the author and not necessarily the views of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ('RANZCP'). The podcast is not to be relied upon as medical advice, or as a substitute for medical advice, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement. By accessing The RANZCP's podcasts you also agree to the full terms and conditions of the RANZCP's Website. Expert mental health information and finding a psychiatrist in Australian or New Zealand is available on the RANZCP’s Your Health In Mind Website.
Welcome to the first episode of the Thought Broadcast, a podcast designed for psychiatry trainees in Australia and New Zealand. I'm Andrew Amos, Director of Training for North Queensland, and I'm joined by Ollie and Ryan, who've recently joined the Australasian psychiatry editorial team. Hi guys, uh, can I get you to give us a little bit of background on where you are in space and in training? Thanks for the introduction.
SPEAKER_03Um, my name's Olly and I am a stage two trainee. Uh I'm located at Bowen Health in Geelong and recording today from the surf coast in Victoria.
SPEAKER_01Oh, lovely.
SPEAKER_02And Brian?
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Andrew. So my name's Brian. I'm currently a stage three uh trainee, and I'm working in uh Tu Wong Specialist Clinic at the moment in Brisbane.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Uh look, there are many topics of general interest to psychiatry trainees that we hope to cover over the course of these podcasts. But uh all three of you seemed keen to begin with a series on the scholarly project. So why start there?
SPEAKER_03In discussions between the three of us, uh, our our goal with the journal is to try and encourage trainee engagement with the journal. So the uh the scholarly project seemed like a really natural fit. Um, it's it's the primary source of research experience within the training program and probably the best opportunity a lot of trainees have to engage in the publication process. So we felt like it was a really good place to start. And what we're hoping to do is to try and demystify the scholarly project a little bit and also try and humanize um the research experience and offer some human stories behind it because I think sometimes that can be lost as a trainee.
SPEAKER_01And I definitely agree, Oliver. I think um probably one of the things that I face is I saw a lot of my colleagues who get very worried about the scholarly project and they become a big hurdle for them to advance through their training. And I feel like a lot of a lot of these fear is based on just not knowing what is involved and having done it before.
SPEAKER_02Look, I'm a director of training, as I mentioned, and uh certainly the the level of terror in some registrars faced by this process is is quite extreme. And as you say, it's probably the most different thing from what you're used to in your clinical time that you're asked to do as part of your training. So certainly something I think uh is good to focus on. Well, we're gonna begin by asking Brian to share his experiences with us. And I understand that uh over the next few podcasts, we're also aiming to explore the different roles required to successfully complete a scholarly project, including interviewing Jeremy Cooper, the chair of the scholarly project committee. Is that right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's correct. Uh so Jeremy's kindly agreed to get on board with the podcast. We'll uh be getting in touch with him soon to try and gain an insight from, I suppose, the other side and the people looking at the projects as they come across the table and get some more insights into uh what maybe trainees could be doing um in order to maximize the chances of getting through. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Well, look, um we are starting with Brian, and uh just before the podcast, Brian mailed along his uh his publication in Australasian Psychiatry, which is a uh fantastic looking article. So, Brian, can you briefly introduce us to the ideas that are covered in your article and the approach you took to the scholarly project?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. Um so for my scholarly project, I I submitted as a normal process, and and after it submitted, I also sent for the uh the journal for publication as well. So for me, that was a parallel process. And um, it was actually only after I um successfully finished the project and got it approved, uh, only a few months after that that I got it uh published with Australian Agency China. Um and my project um at that time was in Mackay, which is the small regional town in Queensland, and we were looking at uh the relationship between unemployment and the right of people coming into emergency with substance-induced disorder. Um, because it's quite interesting in Mackay. Um, it was used to be a big mining town, and then we had that mining downturn with a lot of people losing jobs. And um I think as a clinician, we saw that there were more people coming to EDA afterwards with uh just substance-induced disorder, and then we you know we just questioned and whether or not there was any relationship between unemployment and what we're seeing. So I think our research just started with a you know a bit of curiosity and just like a hypothesis before we start to test that.
SPEAKER_02Would you say, was this a pre-existing area of interest for you, or was it more that as you were just discussing, there was a clinical relevance to this type of uh idea? Or perhaps did it come out of discussions with other professionals in Mackay?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think it's that it came out quite randomly. We we were having just a very random doctor meeting, and uh one of the consultants who was a locum at that time just had the notice say, Oh, you know, in Mackay, we I just saw so many of you all coming to AD with this problem, what's going on? And then another consultant who was there for a long time said, Oh, yeah, we we never saw that much before the downturn. So the discussion turned into, oh, I wonder if there's any relationship. And and and and then we just said, Oh, it could be a good scary project. And it just turned, transformed from that idea into a probable um project, and it's and then took a lot more refining afterwards, but it just turned from a random question, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, and that's how many great projects come. I mean, you have a relevant clinical situation, you have a natural question that arises out of that situation, and then that's what you go and investigate. Were you at the time or in the process of writing the article, were you aware of any background, like uh the studies that looked at uh recessions in Greece, for example, and rates of suicide, things like that?
SPEAKER_01Uh actually, uh I started reading more at a started doing a literary review, and you know, we look at a lot of you know, like you said, increase in in a Europe where they had that uh recession as well, with a lot of youth committed suicide and uh just a substance more problem with psychosis and substance use after the um um uh uh economic recession. So I think that was only after I started thinking more of a literal review that I know a bit more. So I had no previous background about this topic before that.
SPEAKER_02Did you get any guidance or help with that process of doing the literature review? I mean, it can be quite a big topic, of course. Were there any resources available to help you with that?
SPEAKER_01Uh unfortunately, because we were in Mackay, which is really a you know a smaller service. There were not a lot of people who've been through this process before, so a lot of it were quite um self-guided and you know, a lot of like just spending some time in Google. But it's quite amazing what you can find Google Scholar uh these days. I'm sure if I had a librarian, that probably would have been a bit a lot more easier, but you know, it was quite a fun process for me as well, just learning about it.
SPEAKER_02Ollie, I know that both you and and Michael have also completed your scholarly project. Did you have any access to resources that helped with the literature review side of things?
SPEAKER_03Uh well, in my experience, I actually wrote a literature review for my scholarly project, so um it was you know sort of embedded as part of doing that. Uh, and I was lucky enough to be working in a um a research group uh in Geelong at Deakin University, the Impact Group, with Michael Burke. So I had really good supervision, and um I was set up with being able to meet with a librarian and have some learning about how to conduct a review and systematic search of the literature. So I was um in a different can to Brian. I suppose I had I had some more resources immediately available to me, and they were really helpful for me in getting the work done.
SPEAKER_02Well, look, um one of my roles is I do cover Mackay and and uh there are some resources there. So um Mackay Hospital does have a relationship with one of the Central Queensland universities, and you can often get access to their librarians. You do have to ask nicely, but generally they will help you with those sorts of searches. And usually within Queensland Health, there there will be a local library service that can help with that. So um often it's a matter of asking the right people, and usually the best way of doing that is if you are aware that there are people that have been engaged in research and may um you know publish things in in journals, they're they're probably the people to approach because they may be able to point you in the right direction. So, Brian, um you uh you had a question that came out of a clinical situation, you then did some reading and and background. I noticed that your article uh you you had a colleague involved in your research. Was that a difficult um relationship to to uh negotiate, or was it great having somebody else on board?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I think it was really great having someone on board because um uh it's a big project, so you know I think and we we noticed that we could share with someone else. So um, and we were we're good friends, and we are still very good friends, so that's why it was very easy uh for us to share. Um, my colleague at our Taminel, who's very hardworking, and I'm a bit more analytic, so she was very keen to do the a bit more manual labor, was I'm a bit more about oh, yeah, how do we analyze this data, how do we integrate this data? So we work together very, very well.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Are you saying you were the brains and she was the brawn? Uh in a way. So look, the division of labor is important because, of course, with the scholarly project, each person does have to have their own input into the intellectual property. And and it, but it is also a very good idea to have complementary skill sets, as you've described. Generally, you will want people to be involved in each of the different aspects of the process. So, you know, coming up with the idea, doing some of the data analysis and then the interpretation. So bouncing ideas off people really is the best way of becoming comfortable with the ideas for the scholarly project, whether it's um a research project like yours or a review such as Ollie did. Did you have a local supervisor or did you rely on people from outside the service?
SPEAKER_01Uh, we use a local supervisor who was a consultant for trying to just adapt to him.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Were they involved in the original discussion that led to the idea?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, they were. I think um, and and he was um involved in a regional discussion, and he was the one, oh yeah, why don't we do the uh topic out of this? Um so yes, he was involved.
SPEAKER_02Look, I I am familiar with Mackay, so a bit of local knowledge, and it is a smaller team there, both of uh psychiatrists and psychiatric registrars, but it seems to be a fairly tight team and um a number of people trained through the UK, so very familiar with audits and so on, perhaps a little bit more than publications. Brian, throughout the course of your project, were there any specific challenges that you faced, difficult times, barriers that had to be overcome, anything like that?
SPEAKER_01I think the the most challenging thing is at that time I was not aware of the potential help out there with the uh research and the statistics side. Um so it was a lot of thinking in terms of how do we look at this topic. We decided then to look at the correlation between unemployment and the emission rate. And it's about finding what statistic to use to employ to look at that relationship and to kind of navigate that. Um so a lot of Google on time. And uh again, it's amazing what you can find, Google just to kind of teach you what um statistic that you can use, and also just because I wasn't aware of the potential software that was available out there to just help me go through that statistic. So it's a lot of the technical difficulty that I face, I think.
SPEAKER_02Well, look, software is a very interesting, well, it's probably not an interesting topic of discussion, it's a very useful topic topic of discussion for this particular type of scholarly project. You you've mentioned statistics software, another one I'd probably mention would be the referencing software. So, did you did you find any software that was useful that was accessible through Queensland Health?
SPEAKER_01So I used the AirNote for the reference software that accessed from Queensland Health. And uh the library was really helpful with that, no, with that one. Um, with the statistics software, I did not use any that affiliate with Queensland Health. I, after a bit of Google, I found a software called XLstat that basically just can put an add-in for your normal XL software, and it can just run a statistic, and it had a third-day free trial, and uh it was all I needed to analyze the data. So perfect for the project.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a really important point. Um, the clearer your ideas and the the better expressed they are in terms of your hypotheses, usually the more simple and powerful your results are going to be, and the statistical analysis then becomes much more clear. So it's usually an advantage to have put a bit of thought into it. I wasn't aware of Excel stats, but I'm certainly aware of the add-in um side of things. Do you have anything to say about EndNote? So the referencing software essentially that allows you to not worry about your references once you've typed in the basics. It'll insert and then format all of the references for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. EndNote is a lifesaver. I think it saved me many, many hours of reference. So I would recommend anyone that thinking of doing anything Sky start using NOT.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would I would second that, Brian. I think it was a lifesaver for me to couldn't do a literature review without it.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, so literature review is very important. Um, if you are looking at publication, that sort of stuff is really important, particularly because different journals can require different formats, and it can be an enormous pain changing from one format to another if you're looking at different different uh journals for submission. So um a very useful skill to get involved with. If you have admin support that'll do it for you, that's also um even more of a lifesaver. Ollie, do you have any questions you'd like to ask Brian?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I suppose uh Brian, we've spoken briefly about how um the process went for you, but um, I was interested what it was like uh in the data gathering phase. It looked like you used retrospective data um going back through either medical notes or notes through the EDE. And I would assume that was a pretty laborious process. I'd be just interested to know what that was like for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh it was quite laborious, and I think that's why it's very important that during a big research, you have a colleague to help you as well. So, you know, we share, we share the work with this. Um, and I think it's also great to look at the readily available data. For example, SEMA is very helpful. It was very helpful that Makan was using electric IMI at that time as well, you know. So and also ask the uh the hospital uh medical record um people as well, because they you know hold the uh emission right uh uh and lineup style so they can run a report for you quite easily. Um the unemployment data is quite easy because they are available on the government website. So I think that was something that we discussed that doing research is is is already difficult enough. So if you can plan your project and use readily available data, it's really help you to get project going. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you had to sort of communicate with lots of different parts of the hospital to uh I suppose access that data. Um that's correct, that's correct. Did you have any advice on that? Did anyone sort of guide you, or was it sort of just picking up the phone or emailing you?
SPEAKER_01It was all about just picking up the phone and just contact um someone. And even if you don't get the right person the first time, they can guide you to to the better person to help you. So it's not an easy process. So, you know, never be afraid to just pick up the phone and call someone and ask a question.
SPEAKER_03I can just imagine that it would be hard to um be going through that and also balancing it with all the other uh training requirements that you've got, whether it be exams or just clinical work. I'm interested to know how that was.
SPEAKER_01Actually, I you know, I think now looking back, I would really uh advise that anyone to start the scroll project or even the psychotherapy, just start early. Start start when you are in stage one, because at that time you're not as busy learning, uh preparing for order exam. And with all research, there are a lot of passive waiting time as well. You know, you submit the ethic, you wait for the response, you then uh respond to the response in a way. Um the extra time that we spend doing the project is not that much. It's something that you can slot out a couple of hours every now and then. It's more the waiting time that is very long. So a lot of my colleagues come to the end of the training in year five and realize that they haven't done the SCOI project. And even at that time, even if they want to make it faster, they can't because there's so much passive waiting time. So I think I would advise that everyone to just start early, as early as you can.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So it's really stop start. You have to kind of get something, you short burst of activity, you send it off for submission, then you're waiting for the ethics committee committee to review it, and you can't rush that process, I suppose. You just got to sit and get it.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, that's correct. So that's why you know the amount of effort that you put in the um the project, you don't need to spend ever uh every day, every a lot of hours. You need a few hours here and there. Um, but it's just a lot of waiting time, like you said. So get it on early.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're inspiring me. I've got a project in my mind that I've been trying to do that I've been working out to do an ethics application for, and I probably should just put in the effort and get the two hours done, and then uh I can sit on my laurels for a few months and wait for the response.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think it's a really good point that you make. A lot of people are afraid of ethics because I think there's a there's a belief that ethics takes forever, takes six months or a year to get it approved, which personally I don't find correct, because our project, the ethic took maybe a month or two max. Um and there's then it also depends on the the complexity of your project. Uh, if it's something that doesn't involve a lot of risk, especially if it's a retrospective um research like like ours, it's actually the ethic doesn't take that long. Um so you know, there's a it looked daunting from from our side, but as you start, it's basically just a few minutes of blank exercise. So I would encourage you to just do it quick and do it early.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, great. Yeah, it's it's such a good project. I mean, reading your paper, um it just like we were talking about earlier, the way that it came out of such a specific local problem and a little observation that has then spawned into something that's really um really valuable and and clearly well executed, I think. More the point. It's yeah, it's good, it's a good article to read. So uh I'd encourage anyone to get on and have a look at it. I'd absolutely agree.
SPEAKER_02Uh look, um there's often follow-up to this sort of article as well, Brian. Have you thought about presenting at a conference or anything like that?
SPEAKER_01Uh so we did present it at the Rancers Conference in Auckland in 2017. And what what sort of response did it get? Uh I think it was has a really favorable uh response, and um that was our first kind of presentation as well, so we were really happy with that. Oh, fantastic.
SPEAKER_02I think presenting at the uh the College Congress is an excellent way to uh meet people with similar interests and develop your network, so very good thing to do. The Auckland Conference was uh was great fun. Not such a big city, but um there was uh a lot of interesting people there. So well, what what's next do you think, Brian? What else uh do you think you might be interested in in terms of future research?
SPEAKER_01At the moment, I'm uh I'm I'm open for any opportunity that knowing the clinical well. Recently I moved the job from the uh public sector to a bit more private position. Um so uh at the moment I'm kind of still learning the job and just surviving the new job uh before uh thinking about doing more research. But uh I'm I'm still in contact with a few of my previous professors who, you know, and helping with their uh with their project. So it's still an ongoing thing. I would I would love to kind of get more experience and have a few more publication as well to the process.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, look, I think once you've developed the skills, it then becomes really natural to get involved in other people's projects. So even if you're not going to be an academic psychiatrist, you can always contribute something, whether that be initiating an idea that somebody else implements or being involved in the analysis and the conclusions. All right, I'd like to finish by thanking David Beale for running the control desk, and again thank Ollie, Michael, and Brian for developing the series. You can subscribe to the Thought Broadcast and all the major podcast services, and we encourage you to check out Psych Matters, the other podcast produced by the College of Psychiatrists. I'll uh see you next time, guys. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_03The links will be available on our bio and website.