Background: There are few hospitalist-specific training supports for writing clinical vignettes and case reports. This can limit participation in academic scholarship and opportunities to share informative cases encountered in everyday practice. Efforts to build hospitalists’ scholarly writing capacity—particularly for junior faculty—must effectively counter modifiable barriers including perceived lack of knowledge and ability.
Purpose: Our Division of Hospital Medicine developed and offered short (2 hour), informal, collaborative in-person clinical vignette–writing “boot camps” to physicians and Advanced Practice Providers (APPs).
Description: After a pilot session at 1 hospital medicine site, sessions were held at 5 other sites in June–November 2022. Each included short presentations and group activities, with clinical mentors and individual writing/editing support after sessions. A semi-structured agenda was used with modules on the rationale for writing vignettes and case reports; case sharing in pairs or groups, with facilitated peer critique using questions based on CARE case report guidelines; discussion of the elements of a compelling case; development of learning objectives; the components of a clinical vignette; drafting text for each section of a clinical vignette using a template; interpreting conference guidelines for vignette submission; and a “next steps” section addressing authorship ethics, literature searching/keyword selection, journal selection, and an overview of the peer review process. We provided a list of online, institutional, and library resources. The proportion of time dedicated to each module differed by session, guided by participants’ needs and questions. Snacks were provided.Twenty-one hospitalists (20 physicians and 1 APP) attended sessions after the pilot; 10 and 11 completed anonymous pre- and post-session evaluations, respectively, with Likert-scale, multiple choice, and free text questions. Attendance increased hospitalists’ confidence on all variables, indicated by mean agreement on a 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree” scale: scholarly writing ability (pre-session 3.70, post-session 3.91), clinical vignette writing (3.89 pre, 4.27 post), case report writing (3.60 pre, 4.00 post), navigating conference peer review (3.22 pre, 3.27 post) and navigating journal peer review (2.80 pre, 3.18 post). No results were significant using unpaired t-tests, but this may be due to small sample sizes and significant heterogeneity in writing experience among participants.In free text comments, participants indicated the session was fun and helpful. They requested additional group discussion of cases, before/after examples of revision, and detailed instruction in citation management and literature searches.Seven participants have presented their vignettes at institutional and regional conferences; 2 had vignettes published as Cases of the Month in Department newsletters; 1 presented at the Department Research Day; and 2 were published in peer-reviewed journals. Several participants used workshop skills to revise older cases for expansion to presentations and case reports; others continue to refine vignettes for national conferences and publication.
Conclusions: In-person boot camps can improve hospitalists’ confidence in clinical vignette writing. Tailored support can increase their skills and motivation to submit clinical vignettes to conferences, publish case reports, and participate in scholarly writing more broadly.