No Pain No Gain - Quest for Academic and Research Excellence

No pain in academic and research endeavors, no gain in university rankings. Let us look at the gain first. Any university worth its salt has a high caliber faculty who are experts in their fields of study and are effective teachers or mentors to their students. Their effectiveness in teaching are mostly informed by their continuing research activities and strong academic performance of students. As more faculty publish their studies, the higher the probability of citations. Reputation and university rankings elevate with academic and research excellence of its faculty and students. Improved university rankings are likely to translate into opportunities for larger international research collaborations and funding. As more resources become available for research, higher is the chance to participate in ground-breaking studies.

 

Now, let us look at the pain points particularly with research and publication. The discipline employed in the research process is necessarily painful, otherwise, mediocrity, to say the least, is on standby. The researchers struggle with long hours, competing interests, lack of support and funding. How can we lessen the pain?

 

Supporting the researcher with clearly allocated paid time and space would be a good start. For those new in research, proper training not just in the conduct of research but also in scientific writing is key. The motivated researcher goes through the gauntlet of rigorous investigation willingly. Much of the interest to do research is the desire to address a problem scientifically and contribute to a body of knowledge to better life and society. For the medical faculty who are also clinicians, the chance to improve patient outcomes and public health are strong incentives for research. Professional growth also accompanies every motivation to research and publish. For the university targeting global rankings, research citations are the priority. When the university allocates high percentage points for "Research and Creative Works” for faculty promotion, there is a stronger incentive to research and publish.

 

JMUST has carved out its publishing role to encourage academic and research excellence in the University of Santo Tomas. JMUST continues to expand with our recent SCOPUS reach and increasing number of submissions in our very accessible and friendly electronic authoring platform and distribution platforms. The rigorous scientific and medical educational content endeavored by the editors led JMUST to be a Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) indexed journal, while also based on its regularity and completeness of publication.

 

For this 2022, April issue, our cover is the winning “World’s Best Mobile Photo,” which signifies our quest for academic and research excellence for the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. We are grateful to Dr. Jose Leonardo V. Mejno Jr, a UST-FMS Magilas Class 1981 alumnus who lent this original photo for our cover.

 

We have 13 articles for this current issue, which are as follows: (1) For Clinical Research: two clinical articles, a case report, a meta-analysis, a systematic review and review article; (2) For Clinical Practice: a KAP survey; (3) For Public Health Policy: three action researches; (4) For Educational Management: An interpretive phenomenology and a quantitative research; and (5) Medical Education: An insight article.

 

Once again, we are very lucky to have our very committed and amazing National and International Editorial Board and peer reviewers who made it possible for us to publish the first quarter of this year.

 

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