Time To Publish, Not Perish

Abstract

Writing and publishing are essential to the success of nurse clinicians and faculty in the promotion and advancement process. However, given the multidimension- al daily demands of the nursing role, numerous barriers stand in the way of those nurses attempting to develop a body of scholarly work. Alspach (2010) describes two major categories that discourage nurse professionals from publishing: fears that are lurking and factors that are lacking.Most of us recognize the fears that prevail in the lurking category. Along with time and knowledge in the lacking category, there is the factor of less mentoring, guidance, and support available to facilitate scholarly publication among nurses who have fulfilled their degree requirements.The recent Institute of Medicine (2011) report on the future of nursing calls on nurses to be full partners in the delivery of health care. But to establish the discipline of nurs- ing as a leader in health care, it is essential to disseminate nursing scholarship. Thus, we must identify barriers to publication among nurses and take action to remove them.Scholarly writing retreats are an action-oriented step designed to overcome barriers to publishing. Retreats encourage nurse professionals to develop scholarly publications through protected and inspired time, mentoring, and guidance. The NLN offers a series of outstanding scholarly writing retreats supported by Pocket Nurse, Inc. Nurse faculty participants are selected through an application process and are mentored in preparing an outline and draft, writing an article and submitting it for publication, as well as making revisions, as needed, until the article is accepted for publication.Schools of nursing can also sponsor retreats for faculty. For example, here is a description of the scholarly writing retreat conducted this year, for the first time, by the Fairfield University School of Nursing. First, a site coordinator called for in- terested participants, helped select a suitable date, and located a consultant with a strong publication record. An external consultant provides participants with evaluation and assistance through a formative process, without fear of evaluation.The consultant began work with the participants several months before the retreat via organized teleconferences. These meetings focused on the development of topic areas, an exploration of the literature, and the selection of possible pub- lication venues. The projected outcome was that each participant would have a paper ready for submission to a scholar- ly journal shortly after the completion of the retreat. …