Timothy B. Gardner, MD, MS, is a Professor of Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and an attending gastroenterologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He directs the Pancreatic Disorders Program and the Islet Cell Transplant Program, with clinical and research focus in pancreatology, endoscopic ultrasound, and therapeutic endoscopy.
Medical students often lack structured, early opportunities to engage in academic publishing, and while student-run journals exist, few published frameworks describe how to create and sustain them. This absence of guidance limits replication and institutional adoption as a strategy for improving research literacy. To address this gap, the Graduate Medical Scholars Journal (GMSJ) was developed at the Geisel School of Medicine as a sustainable, student-led medical journal model providing hands-on training in peer review, scholarly writing, and editorial decision-making. Built with faculty mentorship using Open Journal Systems (OJS) v3.4.0.7 and hosted through A2 Hosting, GMSJ operates under a tiered editorial structure: Primary Reviewers (first-years), Editorial Board Members (second-years), Production Managers (first- and second-years), and Editors-in-Chief (third-years), with faculty reviewers offering oversight and mentorship. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and reviewer resources were created, and the structure evolved based on team feedback and functional needs. The journal’s infrastructure and workflows are complete, the Editorial Board has been selected and onboarded, and the first call for submissions is planned for October 2025 after our official launch in September 2025. Key lessons learned include the importance of clear role delineation, peer mentorship, and sustainable leadership transitions. Although not initially theory-driven, the model aligns with frameworks of situated learning and near-peer teaching, offering a replicable foundation for other institutions seeking to implement student-led publishing initiatives to enhance research literacy and peer review education.
References
Mokhtari B, Badalzadeh R, Ghaffarifar S. The next generation of physician-researchers: undergraduate medical students' and residents' attitudes, challenges, and approaches towards addressing them. BMC Med Educ. 2024;24(1):1313. Published 2024 Nov 14. doi:10.1186/s12909-024-06166-8
Funston G, Piper RJ, Connell C, Foden P, Young AM, O'Neill P. Medical student perceptions of research and research-orientated careers: An international questionnaire study. Med Teach. 2016;38(10):1041-1048. doi:10.3109/0142159X.2016.1150981
Ho, Adrian. (2011). Creating and Hosting Student-Run Research Journals: A Case Study. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research. 6. 10.21083/partnership.v6i2.1516.
