ArticlePerspectives on medical education2025
The Rocky Road to Rejection Resilience: A Personal Publishing Journey.
Article in Perspectives on medical education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: The journey through submission, rejection, and eventual publication of scholarly work is challenging to academic researchers' resilience. Dealing with rejection without succumbing to burnout or impostor syndrome requires a growth mindset. This paper analyses one author's manuscript rejections over five years and makes recommendations for academic researchers regarding manuscript rejections. Methods: This retrospective longitudinal mixed-methods study included one author's rejected submissions from 2019 to 2023. Quantitative data on manuscript rejection characteristics: number of rejections, subsequent publication, submission (field and research type), journal location and impact factor, and nature of rejection (desk rejection, rejection after review or revision) were analysed descriptively. Qualitative data (narrative text indicating reasons for desk rejection) were analysed thematically. Ethics approval was obtained. Results: Eighty submissions of 47 manuscripts were rejected, including 65% desk rejections. Most manuscripts were rejected once (60%) or twice (26%), and 77% were subsequently published. Most submissions were to journals in Africa (56%), on postgraduate student research (63%), in the field of medicine (71%). Themes related to reasons for desk rejection included not meeting journal requirements (scope, focus, criteria or priority), manuscript inadequacy (novelty, relevance, methodology, or contribution), and ethical issues (similarity indices, or ethics documentation). Discussion: This study on manuscript rejections received by one author over five years revealed that most rejected manuscripts were subsequently published. Desk rejection was most common. We support literature on normalizing and destigmatizing rejection and bolstering resilience to support academic researchers when dealing with technical, manuscript-related revisions and inevitable emotional responses to rejection to ensure healthy longevity in their scholarly careers.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.