Academic Medicine is seeking original submissions for our Letters to the Editor feature from medical students, residents, and fellows, as well as trainees in other health professions on the topic of why mentorship has mattered in your professional journey.

The editors are seeking letters from all levels and disciplines (e.g., medical students, residents, fellows, other health professions, graduate PhD students, postdoctoral scholars, etc.) that describe an experience with a mentor, sponsor, or coach, and how this experience has promoted, or perhaps challenged, your professional development. A successful letter will not simply highlight a positive or negative experience—or be a tribute to an individual mentor—but will illuminate how your mentorship experience influenced your self-understanding, identity, or growth as a professional in health care and/or the biomedical sciences.

We expect you to use your personal experience to illustrate the point, but the purpose of the letter should be to communicate a broader issue or idea that has relevance for others throughout academic medicine. Submissions that are strictly narrative will not be considered for publication. Authors wishing to submit a strictly narrative piece should explore the journal’s Teaching and Learning Moments manuscript type as an option.

If you would like to submit a letter for consideration, please see our formatting for Letters to the Editor and submit your letter between 9AM (ET) on Monday, June 12 and 5PM (ET) on Friday, June 16. Please note the window for submissions is just one week. Letters submitted outside of this window will be disqualified. We will add a link to the submission site prior to the call launch on June 12.

We want to hear directly from trainees! Although students, residents, and fellows are welcome to seek input from faculty mentors, we ask that all submissions be authored by trainees only. Faculty members may be thanked in an acknowledgments section if appropriate but should not make contributions that qualify for authorship. Letters with non-trainee authors will be disqualified.

IMPORTANT: 

• There is a strict 400-word limit for letters. The word count includes the text of the letter AND references. It does not include the title, disclosures, or author information. Submissions that are over the word limit may be disqualified.
• There is a limit of only 3 authors per letter. Submissions with 4 or more authors will be disqualified.
• Letters have no tables or figures and do not require an abstract or cover letter.

Authors will be notified in August. Accepted letters will be published online ahead-of-print in late fall and together as a special collection in one or more upcoming issues of Academic Medicine.

Finally, please follow us on Twitter (@AcadMedJournal) for further information and resources about this call for papers.  

If you have questions, please contact us at academicmedicine@aamc.org.