Our first publication – July 2024

One way of sharing our ideas and opinions about how medicines should be used is by getting stuff published. Sometimes people say ‘publications’, or ‘get published’. They mean the same thing.

The good thing about publications is that this is the language of professionals, academics and policy makers (e.g politicians, hospital bosses, etc.). It is a bit old fashioned, but this is one way which these groups communicate with each other.

So if we get stuff published, people are more likely to take notice of it, and act on it.

---

What does it take to get published?

Getting published means getting a bit of text (like a document) through several steps:

1. The first step is to create the piece of writing between ourselves.
2. We then send it to a publisher, who ask some other clever people that we don’t know to review our work (a bit like a teacher marking an exam paper).
3. They then send it back to us, usually with some comments about how to improve it.
4. You then make changes and send it back. If they are happy with your changes, then it gets published.
5. They then publish the writing on whatever platform they use. This could be a scientific journal, a newsletter, or a website.

Once we’ve done all those steps, we can then send the publication to people to read.

---

What did we get published?

Me (Stephen) and the Salm family wrote about their experience of being in hospital following a problem with their medicine. Click the link to read more about this piece of work:

Library and Knowledge Service ‘Pick of the Publications’ – a case report highlighting the importance of patient centred care and learning – Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (leedsth.nhs.uk)

Or you can read the whole thing here:

Harm to a child caused by the off-label use of prochlorperazine maleate tablets due to the discontinuation of licensed prochlorperazine mesilate liquid in the UK | European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy (bmj.com)

---

Who has been reading the publication?

So far the publication has been read over 1000 times and downloaded over 120 times (some of this is probably automated bots) in just 2 months since published (June 2024). I have also shared it with the children’s pharmacy group so hopefully a few of them have read it too.

I am also planning to see if we can get some of the books changed which doctors, nurses and pharmacists use when they decide what dose of medicine you should be given. I have sent it to some of the editors and waiting to hear a response (as of 6th August 2024).

---