Today’s post is from Teresa Marin, a Canadian phychologist who loves back pain so much that she is now the managing editor from the Cochrane Back Review Group

You can get in touch with Teresa and the Cochrane Back Pain Group on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CochraneBackReviewGroup?fref=ts

It has been two years now since I completed my Doctoral degree, and looking back, my biggest challenge as a graduate student was to write a review paper on any topic in the field of Health Psychology.  This review paper was a program requirement, but I wanted to do more than simply satisfy this requirement.  I wanted to write a paper that would make a meaningful contribution to the field of Health Psychology, allow me to define my own program of research, and ultimately, get published in a high-impact journal.  As you might imagine, I was feeling the pressure before I even had a topic.

I knew that choosing the “right” topic was key to producing an important review.  So, every time I came up with an idea, I quickly rejected it as being not good enough.  After two months of this my supervisor urged me to return to my original idea (and I have since learned that first ideas are usually best!).  Once I had a topic and a rough model with many boxes and arrows, there was nothing to prevent me from plunging in.  I planned to finish the bulk of the writing in the fall of 2008 at my parents’ home in Nova Scotia.

My actual timeline:
Fall of 2008 – I retreated to the peace, quiet and isolation of the South Shore of Nova Scotia to dedicate myself to writing.  This might sound like a good idea, but it certainly didn’t work for me.  I had way too much time on my hands.  I just could not find a way to begin.  Every time I opened up my laptop to start writing I immediately felt the need to take a nap.

Summer 2009 – There was a heat wave in Vancouver, which meant that I wanted to spend all of my time at the Kitsilano pool, but I was STILL struggling to complete a draft.  The departmental deadline was quickly approaching, and so the pressure was on.  I eventually got focused by cutting myself off from friends, Facebook, and the “Twilight Trilogy.”

Winter 2010 – My supervisor and I submitted a revised version of the review to a journal for publication. It was an 80-page beast with more than 60 included studies.

Fall 2012 – After three rounds of major revisions and the deletion of 20 pages of text, the article was accepted for publication in our journal of choice.  Success!

Yes, it took me four years to write the review and finalize it for publication.  Over this period of time one of my friends got married, had a baby, finished a post doc, became a registered psychologist, and secured a faculty position!  I really have no excuse for this, especially since I had a supportive supervisor who did his best to keep me on track.  I think the challenge was that I didn’t have a roadmap.  I had grown accustomed to writing empirical papers that have a sort of formula, whereas this review was more akin to writing a novel (at least that’s the way it felt!), and I got stuck over and over again.

In my current role as Managing Editor of the Cochrane Back Review Group, I often send out nagging emails to authors who are behind schedule on their reviews or updates.  However, I do this with total understanding of the types of obstacles that can arise, whether they are methodological or motivational in nature!  I also understand what it’s like to contend with peer review comments – it can be most disheartening to edit the same sections over and over.  When it comes to unwieldy projects, I guess the only thing to do is keep pushing through, as these are the projects that tend to have the biggest payoff in the end.