*Submission site: Submitter Login Page – Call for Papers – 2025 Academic Medicine’s Letters to the Editor Written by Trainees*
Editor’s note: We are using the Cadmium submission platform for the call for Trainee-Authored Letters to the Editor; please do NOT submit your letters through Editorial Manager.
Academic Medicine is seeking original submissions for our Letters to the Editor feature from trainees in medicine, other health professions, and the biomedical sciences, reflecting on “the moment I knew”—a pivotal moment in your professional life.
Your letter should describe a moving experience that led to a shift within you and consolidated your motivation/sense of purpose about the way(s) in which you wish to contribute to academic medicine.
Tell us about the moment you knew you wanted to become a doctor, health professional, researcher, or scientist; focus on a given field; study a particular disease or area of biomedicine; or serve a specific population. The moment you knew you wanted to do, to become, to support, to solve, to serve, to cure.
A successful letter will not simply highlight an experience but will illuminate how this moment served as a turning point in your self-understanding, identity, or growth as a professional in health care and/or in biomedical and health-related scientific fields. It will communicate a broader issue or idea that has relevance for others throughout academic medicine.
Submissions will be considered from authors in all disciplines and at all levels of training (medical students, residents, and fellows; students and trainees in other health professions, such as nursing and pharmacy; and PhD students, postdoctoral scholars, etc.).
If you would like to submit a letter for consideration, please see our formatting guidelines for Letters to the Editor. The window for submissions opens on Friday, May 9, and closes on Monday, May 19, at 11:59 PM EDT. Letters submitted outside of this 10-day window will be disqualified.
We want to hear directly from trainees! Trainees are welcome to seek input from faculty mentors, but we require 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.
IMPORTANT:
- There is a strict limit of 500 words with up to 5 references. The title, disclosures, author information, and references are not included in the word limit. Letters have no tables or figures and do not require an abstract or cover letter. Submissions that do not meet these limits may be disqualified.
- There is a strict limit of 3 authors per letter. Given the focus of this call, we expect most letters will have 1 author. Submissions with 4 or more authors, or with non-trainee authors, will be disqualified.
- Only 1 submission will be considered per author.
- Letters should not include the names of individuals. If writing about another individual in your letter, please use descriptive terms (e.g., my mother, a 30-year-old male patient) when possible. Use a pseudonym if a name is required, and change details as needed to protect privacy. In such instances, add a note at the end of the letter, above your author information, indicating “Identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individual(s) described.”
Authors will be notified in August. Accepted letters will be published online ahead-of-print in early 2026 and together as a special collection in one or more issues of Academic Medicine in 2026.
Please follow us on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/academic-medicine-journal), X (formerly Twitter; @AcadMedJournal), or BlueSky (@acadmedjournal.bsky.social) for further information and resources about this call for papers.
If you have questions, please contact us at academicmedicine@aamc.org.