|  |  |
General Information
Advanced Training Projects in Australia
(cont.)
Options for Advanced Training Projects
The written project may take several forms. Generally projects should be
selected from at least 2 different categories during the 3 years of training.
These are the categories:
- clinical or laboratory research presented in a form suitable or already
submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed journal (Vancouver guidelines);
- report of a series of cases illustrative of a particular problem accompanied
by a significant review of the relevant literature;
- single case of an unusual problem accompanied by an in depth literature
review (acceptable as one project only);
- a substantial research proposal including background, rationale, hypothesis,
methodology and budget and accompanied by a comprehensive literature
review (standard equivalent to an National Health Medical Research Council
(NHMRC) Project Grant Application or New Zealand Health Research Council
(NZHRC)-acceptable as one project only;
- report and commentary of a substantial piece of original work either
in progress or complete, e.g. doctorate (PhD, MD) or thesis for other
higher degree. A successful PhD may be assessed as equivalent to 3 projects.
An Executive Summary or Abstract of the higher degree must be comprehensible
as a stand-alone document;
- Quality Assurance, action research or an audit or evaluation of a
service or clinical program accompanied by a literature review;
- systematic review of the literature: an example of the process to
be used is the Cochrane Collaboration;
- course work from a higher degree such as Masters of Public Health
e.g. series of epidemiological case studies;
- alternative projects such as CD ROM, Guide to Internet, authorship
of a handbook or career information video which fulfil the project objectives
need to be discussed prospectively with the SAC/JSAC.
It is permissible to complete a project where the project submitted is based
on only a part of study that is currently being conducted by a larger research
team. An example of this might be where trainees work as a member of an
NHMRC Research Grant team for one year only and writes up the results of
their involvement. In such cases trainees will generally not have designed
the initial study. In such circumstances trainees and supervisors will be
required to inform the SAC/JSAC what percentage of the work presented was
performed by the trainees.
In some circumstances 2 trainees may be working on the one project. If this
is to be the case the 2 trainees and the supervisor must apply to the SAC/JSAC
for permission to submit a jointly authored project. This must be obtained
prospectively and indicated in the approval form. The joint project must
be submitted by due date of that year (this is acceptable as one project
only).
How to Write a Project
A project report should be of a format and standard suitable for presentation
at a meeting of a national or international society or for publication in
a peer reviewed journal.
- Pages should be numbered and lines double-spaced.
- The Title Page should contain the full title of the paper,
names of other authors, institute where the work was conducted, name
of the project supervisor, date of submission and whether project is
part of a higher degree.
- The Abstract should be structured and no more than 250 words,
subdivided into the following sequential sections: Objective; Methodology;
Results; Conclusions. Studies that do not easily conform to this
subdivision may still be structured but the headings amended as appropriate.
For rase reports and review articles, unstructured, descriptive abstracts
may be appropriate. The overall presentation should be similar to that
for a journal article with introduction, patients and methods, results
and discussion sections. The aim/objective/goal must be clearly stated.
- The Introduction should be relatively brief and should outline
the background of the study including the aims and hypotheses. Detailed
literature reviews and discussion should be reserved for the discussion
section.
- Patients and Methods and all terms must be defined. Statistical
methods should be presented entirely within the methods section.
- The Results section should contain all the results. Results
should not be included in the methods or discussion sections nor should
discussion be included in the results section. Tables, figures and illustrations
must be referred to in the text and have appropriate legends. Tables
and figures should be readable and intelligible as 'stand alone' items.
Any figures and photographs should be labelled on the back. Photographs,
results and any other patient material must be carefully screened to
remove personal identification items.
- The Discussion should be precise, logical and relevant to
the particular study. Authors should compare their results with other
studies and state what contribution the project makes to the existing
literature and what the implications are for clinical practice. The
Discussion should include recommendations for future studies or directions.
- The References must follow the Vancouver guidelines.
- Acknowledgments, either as a footnote to the text or on the front
page, are to recognise contributions that fall short of authorship.
Checklist for Advanced Trainees
- Permission must have been sought from the patient and/or the patient's
family where the project is a single or multiple case report and included
with the project.
- Project supervisors should review the project at least 3 weeks before
submission.
- The project is to include front page, abstract, subjects and methods,
results, discussion and bibliography.
- All tables, figures and illustrations are to have legends - an individual
used for photographs should not be identifiable.
- Include the Certificate of Ethics Committee approval, if indicated.
- Submit to the SAC/JSAC by the due date.
<< Advanced Training
Projects in Australia previous
[ Table of Contents
]
|
 |
