The “Down to Earth” Academic Skills column (DTE) has been a manuscript type of Academic Psychiatry since its first article in 2004 [1], providing “how to do” publications relevant to medical education and academic skills. As of writing this editorial, 50 DTE articles have been published by the journal. Other medical education journals feature similar pieces or regular columns, for instance, Academic Medicine’s “AM Last Page” and Medical Teacher’s “Twelve Tips” series. During the last 8 years, Academic Psychiatry’s DTE column has been popular based on the average recorded downloads (604), citations (5.4), and Altmetric scores (3.9) across 50 DTE articles. Downloads increased especially since 2019, which, perhaps, is related to the COVID pandemic.

How are DTE submissions to Academic Psychiatry optimally assessed in regard to their scholarly, pragmatic, and educational value? In Academic Psychiatry, DTE articles are peer reviewed. The journal has published guidance on how to review a manuscript [1, 2], but it is more relevant to the review of empirical articles, not “how to do” manuscripts. International standards also exist to aid reviewers in assessing the quality of randomized trials (CONSORT), qualitative research (SRQR), systematic reviews (PRISMA), quality improvement studies (SQUIRE), case reports (CARE), and more [3]. These types of guidelines do not, however, exist to our knowledge for “how to do” articles. The editors of Academic Psychiatry have taken stock of the DTE contributions in the journal and, in this editorial, clarify and restate the purpose, style, and format of this manuscript type to help guide the appropriate submission and review of manuscripts in this category going forward.

Purpose of DTE Submissions

The description of the DTE manuscript type and submission guidelines in Academic Psychiatry [4] read as follows:

The “Down to Earth” Academic Skills column is intended to describe the nuts and bolts of some area of medical education and/or academic career development that is relatively well established and accepted yet not so well established that everyone knows exactly how to do it on a practical level. Publications in this column are not hypothesis driven, nor do they propose new interventions or tools. Column submissions are assessed for the quality of the text in articulating the nuts and bolts in a user-friendly and scholarly manner (evidence-based where possible) and for whether this information is hard to find or access elsewhere. Authors usually have extensive experience in the area described in the submission.

An important aspect of the purpose of the DTE column is contained in its title: it focuses on how to do “academic skills.” Simply put, the subject matter is about how to do tasks encountered by academicians as educators, researchers, and leaders in psychiatry. Typical exemplars are articles like the following: “Writing Multiple-Choice Questions” [5], “Using Learning Through Discussion in Medical Education Settings” [6], “Educational Research Questions and Study Design” [7], “Crafting Compelling Personal Statements” [8], and “Contract Negotiation for Academic Psychiatrists” [9]. The breadth of skills required of academicians is great and, accordingly, so is the diversity of these titles of DTE articles.

The 50 DTE articles published to date roughly separate into the following categories of academic skills (shown with percentages out of the 50 DTE articles): mentoring (33%), teaching/supervision (22%), curriculum design (16%), research/scholarship in education (14%), leadership/administration (8%), and evaluation of learners and teachers (7%). Of note, the academic skills described include those required not only of faculty but also of trainees. For instance, 16% of the 50 DTE articles to date speak particularly to trainees, with titles like “A Guide for Applying to Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship” [10] and “The First Academic Job Search” [11].

At times, authors have submitted articles that are not about academic skills but instead mainly describe tasks relating to the practice of psychiatry in general. For example, authors might submit a DTE manuscript about tips and advice on some type of work with patients, like diagnosis or treatment. Their well-intended aim may be to assist teachers by summarizing practice information to be taught to learners about working with patients, thus offering a ready-made lesson plan for the teacher. In this sense, it will help the reader with the academic skill of teaching, but it is not about “how to do” the academic skill of teaching. A lesson plan is content (i.e., what to teach), not process (i.e., how to teach). When multiple lesson plans are linked, they become a curriculum; thus, these types of manuscripts are a form of curricular content or model curricula.

The journal has been publishing fewer and fewer model curricula; they are better placed in publications or websites set up to peer review them, like MedEdPORTAL [12] and the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training Virtual Training Office [13]. A few DTE articles among the 50 to date in Academic Psychiatry presented curricula in some detail, but they also included comments about how to design, teach, and evaluate curricula. Currently, the journal advises inclusion of samples of a particular curriculum only to provide an illustration of how to do an academic skill, not inclusion of a whole curriculum so it may be taught.

Another purpose of the DTE column is to offer pearls about academic skills. Like clinical wisdom, this academic wisdom comes from experience and is frequently passed down by verbal tradition as “tricks of the trade.” The DTE article attempts to put in writing the nuanced tips and advice that can make the difference, for instance, between an inspiring lecture and one that falls flat. Authorship of DTE articles may be one author who has years of experience as an educator or a team of authors who each contribute different perspectives and experiences. An example of the latter authorship is found in “Applying to Psychiatry Residency Programs” [14], coauthored by a resident, training director, director of education, residency mentor, and department chair. To readers of the journal with years of experience as educators, the advice sounds reasonable, familiar, and not controversial, even if not backed by empirical studies, as such research on these topics is generally not funded or conducted. To this extent, the advice is fairly well established by expert consensus/opinion.

Of note, DTE publications do not propose new or emerging skills. Innovations in academic skills should instead be submitted in the form of Empirical Reports, In Brief Reports, or Educational Case Reports, and their publishability will be determined by the criteria for each of these manuscript types [4]. An educational case report [15] may superficially resemble a DTE article. Both are written with a more qualitative, descriptive, and naturalistic organization, but the educational case report focuses on lessons learned from a specific case in education, which is commonly field testing an innovative intervention in education. DTE articles, however, articulate how to do an established academic skill, which will generally apply across multiple educational contexts.

Ideally, a DTE article fills a gap in the literature. Some academic skills have already been reviewed in the medical education literature, and the journal does not want to allocate space to a redundant topic. An exception may occur if the topic requires updating or is viewed from a new perspective. For example, an article on how to supervise a resident may bear updating due to the online environment necessitated by the recent onset of a global pandemic. On occasion, authors may write about a topic that is not found in the medical education literature but is well published outside of medicine, such as in the business leadership or general education literature. In this situation, bringing academic skills, well developed in another field but new to medical education, would be welcomed in the DTE column. An example is “Using Mutual Invitation in Educational and Professional Small-Group Settings” [16], in which the small-group technique was noted as first described by an Episcopal priest.

Authors planning on writing a DTE article should first search for published articles on their chosen topic and assess if they will be able to advance that literature. Empirical studies about a particular academic skill may be few, but if some exist, authors should cite them as the evidence base or context for the authors’ tips and advice. While planning their manuscript, authors may want to communicate their idea for a DTE submissions to the editorial office of Academic Psychiatry for thoughts about the topic’s appropriateness, timeliness, and publishability [17].

Style and Format

The DTE column is written to convey practical, user-friendly, and actionable information. The style should be scholarly, logically ordered, and appropriately referenced like other articles in the journal [4]. Not being empirical, the DTE format does not include an abstract or methods and results sections. Instead, descriptive headings may be utilized. Additionally, authors may use elements found less often in other manuscript types, like a list of tips, challenges, and opportunities for readers; bullet points on implications for educators; step-by-step procedures; infographics; and process flow charts. Among the 50 DTE article to date, 70% featured tables and/or figures. Sometimes, limited samples of materials used by the authors may be included to demonstrate “how to do” details; for example, an evaluation rubric used in the authors’ course might be provided to give a concrete sense of how to create such a rubric.

In addition to lists and graphic with “how to do” information, some authors bring together links to resources (e.g., websites, national organizations) to facilitate further exploration by the reader. The DTE article “Contract Negotiation for Academic Psychiatrists” [9] included a table of recent salaries. “Becoming a Psychiatrist-Researcher: What It Means and How to Do It” [18] listed grant mechanisms for funding research training. “Incorporating Critical Reflection Activities into Psychiatry Education” [19] outlined and referenced sample rubrics in the literature for evaluating a learner’s reflection activities. “Addiction Teaching and Training in the General Psychiatry Setting” [20] listed numerous websites, mainly of national organizations, with guidelines and tools to pass along to learners. In sum, highly practical reference materials, from multiple and diverse sources, are conveniently brought together by authors of DTE articles, which obviates the need for the readers to do so. The content of websites inventoried are not guaranteed or endorsed, so readers must evaluate each on their own.

As expected of all articles published in the journal, DTE articles should conform with all the journal and publisher’s ethics guidelines and expectations [4]. In particular, reproduction of any materials, like samples or resource lists, may only be undertaken with permission from any copyright holders and must not be promotional in nature. Similarly, disclosure of potential conflicts of interest and funding and acknowledgments, including of prior presentation, are important.

Conclusions

Articles under the DTE column have made significant contributions to Academic Psychiatry and provide practical “how to do” tips and advice relating to academic skills in psychiatry. They are based on expert consensus/opinion that is often passed down verbally by mentors to mentees. We are all profoundly influenced by our academic mentors, many of whom have not put their skills into published papers. Drawing from profound and influential experience is a sound and useful way to assist in the construction of a contribution. DTE articles serve to put this information into writing, allowing scaling of dissemination, and to build a library of described academic skills in the journal. In particular, Academic Psychiatry wants to offer information about skills which are not easily accessed elsewhere, thus filling a gap in the literature. The style and format are scholarly, yet user friendly, with actionable tips and advice. In some ways, it is an academic version of an oral tradition, as in a number of fields of study, including those used in spiritual communities when interpreting scriptures.

The editors look forward to more DTE submissions because there are many academic skills yet to be discussed in the column. As noted earlier, over half of the 50 DTE articles published to date wrote about skills in teaching/supervision or mentoring. Articles about curriculum design or research/scholarship in education were the next most common skills described (each between 10 and 20%). The skills that were least often explained (each less than 10%) were evaluation of learners and teachers and leadership/administration. More DTE submissions are needed in all these areas, but especially for academic leadership topics. Specifically, in the context of financial challenges affecting the health care systems that sponsor psychiatric education, DTE submissions that focus on financial skills in academic leadership may be particularly timely. Additionally, in the context of caring for a diverse population that faces multiple, contemporary threats to optimal mental health, DTE submissions that focus on academic leadership’s ability to facilitate diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in health care would be especially welcome.