Submission Guidelines – Inside the Lives of Canada’s Resident Doctors

Please follow these guidelines when submitting your work for consideration for our upcoming anthology Inside the Lives of Canada’s Resident Doctors.

Editorial Focus

Inside the Lives of Canada’s Resident Doctors is focused on content about residents’ experiences in medical training. Broadly, we are looking for stories told in prose, poetry, or art that capture the highs and lows of being a resident doctor.

Content Guidelines

  • Your story, poetry, or art should address one or more of our established content categories:
    • Meaningful and/or challenging experiences with peers, mentors or patients as a resident doctor in the clinical, academic, or advocacy settings;
    • Personal challenges or milestones in residency, such as physical or mental health issues, maintaining interpersonal relationships, participating in extracurricular interests, having/raising children in residency, etc.;
    • Perspectives from residents trained outside of Canada; and/or
    • Experiences related to differing levels of physical ability, diverse gender identities, and/or sexual orientation.
  • Within these focus areas, you may propose unique and engaging content that will educate the reader and highlight the work of resident doctors.
  • Your story should match the informative tone of the sample content provided.
  • Articles that promote the writer or a commercial venture of the writer are not permitted.
  • Requests to publish pieces anonymously will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
  • Resident Doctors of Canada reserves the right to edit content for brevity, clarity, or other reasons determined by our editors.
  • Resident Doctors of Canada retains the right to text and images of all posts published in the Anthology.
  • Kindly note that due to high demand, not all submissions will be accepted.
  • Submissions and eventual publication will not result in any monetary benefit to the submitter. For accepted prose, poetry, or art, submitters will receive one free copy of the anthology plus discounts on three additional copies.

Writing Guidelines

  • Be creative! Stories should convey your unique voice.
  • Do your research, write accurately, and provide references when helpful.
  • When referencing research, work a casual citation into your article. As a non-academic anthology, Resident Doctors of Canada does not use footnotes or bibliographies.
  • Resident Doctors of Canada may integrate graphical elements into your submission. You may include suggestions.

Consent Procedures

  • To protect the identity of patients and other individuals within a submitted piece, please follow one of two procedures:
    1. Intentionally de-identify the persons to the extent that they would not recognize themselves (i.e., name, age, presenting condition, and/or other identifying feature), or
    2. Obtain the patient or other individual’s consent to appear in your piece via the consent form.
  • Resident Doctors of Canada may further anonymize the submission or request that a consent form is completed.

Cover Art

  • Cover art for Inside the Lives of Canada’s Resident Doctors may be chosen from submissions or solicited via a design contest.

Submission Guidelines

  • Dates: All submissions must be received by April 30, 2019, by 11:59 PM PST. Submissions received after this deadline will be considered ineligible.
  • Fee: There is no fee to submit in response to this call; writers are simply asked to adhere to all of the requirements set out in this document.
  • Word count: Content must be no more than 3,000 words.
  • Artwork: Art should be provided in JPG or PNG format at 150 dpi or higher.
  • Original stories only: Your submission cannot have been published electronically or in print previously, including self-published stories or those published on a blog or public forum.
  • Eligibility: We are seeking submissions from resident doctors currently in training within a Canadian residency program. We are accepting submissions in both English and French and will consider submissions in non-official languages provided the author can provide an English or French translation.
  • Multiple submissions: You may submit up to two pieces for consideration; however, only one submission per author will be selected for publication.
  • No simultaneous submissions: Please do not submit the story to any other publication while it is being considered for publication in Inside the Lives of Canada’s Resident Doctors.

How to Submit

Email your submission and completed consent form(s), if appropriate, to the editorial team at submissions@residentdoctors.ca.

Please format the subject of your email as follows: “Lastname-Firstname-Anthology-Submission#” (i.e., Doe-John-Anthology-Submission1)

In the body of the email, please provide the following:

  • Your full name, program, and year of training.
  • The title of your submission, the word count (if applicable), and a brief statement declaring that you are a resident doctor currently in training within a Canadian residency program.
  • If you are de-identifying the patient(s) or individual(s) mentioned in your piece, please indicate the identifying features changed.

We will respond to all submissions. If you have not heard back from us within two months after the close of submissions, or if you have any questions or concerns about the submissions call, please email the editorial team.

About Us

Resident doctors are an integral part of the frontline of patient-centered healthcare in Canada. Each resident serves in a trio of roles: teacher, trainee, and clinician.

Resident Doctors of Canada (RDoC) represents over 10,000 residents across Canada. Established in 1972, we are a not-for-profit organization providing a unified, national voice for our membership.

If you have questions or require clarification, please contact the Editorial Team at submissions@residentdoctors.ca