On September 11, 2021, MOHAN Foundation in association with NATCO (Network and Alliance of Transplant Coordinators) organised a masterclass on the art of writing a scientific paper titled “Getting It Write”. This masterclass aimed to educate the transplant coordinators and the general public on how to write a scientific paper, why people should write, what are the essentials of writing a paper and what are the journal editors looking to publish. The masterclass was moderated by Ms. Pallavi Kumar, Executive Director, MOHAN Foundation-Delhi NCR.

Dr. Sanjay Nagral, Senior Consultant & Director, Department of Surgical Gastroenterology-Jaslok Hospital & Research Centre, Mumbai, Dr. Manisha Sahay, Professor & Head, Department of Nephrology-Osmania Medical College & Osmania General Hospital, Hyderabad and Dr. Sanjay A Pai, Consultant Pathologist and Head of Pathology-Columbia Asia Referral Hospital, Bengaluru were invited as experts. Dr. Muneet Kaur Sahi, Programme Manager, MOHAN Foundation-Delhi NCR & Dr. Navdeep Bansal, Organ Transplant Coordinator- PGIMER Chandigarh were invited to share their experience of writing a paper.

Key points discussed by Dr Sanjay Nagral:

• Knowledge sharing, advancement of science, career building and fundraising are some of the important reasons for writing papers.
• Writing papers help in team building, lobbying and that leads to policy change.
• People should write papers to express their opinion and for networking.
• There are many myths about writing papers which need to burst such as people should be a ‘senior’ in this field in order to be able to write a paper, people should be fluent in English to write papers, large amount of data is needed to write papers and fear of rejection of the papers.
• It is high time that transplant coordinators start writing research papers to share their ground-level observations and challenges in the field of transplant coordination and grief counselling. They have access to concrete information as they work closely with hospital staff and families of the deceased person, which can help them to write an informative paper.

Key points discussed by Dr. Sanjay A Pai:

• Editorial associations/conflicts of interest which included Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, The National Medical Journal of India, Current Science and Indian Journal of Cancer.
• It is important to choose the topic according to your interest and prepare a checklist that will allow the writer to evaluate whether the paper is ready to be submitted or not.
• History of Medical ethics and Indian Journal of Transplant.
• IMRAD (Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, and Discussion) method was explained for writing papers.

Key points discussed by Dr. Manisha Sahay:

• Significance of writing an eye-catching title of the research paper. The title is the part of a paper that is read the most, and it is usually read first. It is, therefore, the most important element that defines the research study. A good title should provide information about the focus and/or scope of the research study.
• Shared her research paper with the audience – ‘Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding organ donation among adult population of urban Puducherry, south India’ in order for the audience to understand how to write an informative paper systematically.
• Abstract, tables & figures of the paper should be attractive and clearly convey the desired information without the need for references in the text.

Key points discussed by Dr. Muneet Kaur Sahi:

• Shared her experience of writing a scientific paper. It takes a lot of effort and time to finish a good research paper.
• Little things matter while writing a paper such as flow, structure, choice of words.
• It is very important to re-reading the paper and incorporate constructive feedback.
• Importance of having a mentor in life.
• Importance of Ethical Committee in writing a paper.
• She explained manuscript and the review process for a research paper.

Key points discussed by Dr. Navdeep Bansal:

• Approaching the family members of the deceased person for organ donation should be in a good and systematic manner. There should be constant efforts by Transplant coordinators in counselling the families. For example, if a family of the deceased does not give consent for eye donation then they should be counselled for organ donation.
• He shared that during his work experience, close to 100 families gave consent for organ donation of their loved ones in the case of brain death. Out of which 62% families gave their consent for donating all the organs. Whereas, 38% families gave their consent for donating their loved one’s all organs except the eye donation.
• Introduced his research paper titled ‘Challenges in brain death and certification in Neurology’ which is in progress.
• Importance of research in organ donation.

The masterclass was live on MOHAN Foundation’s YouTube channel which garnered 56 views and close to 91 people participated through ZOOM.

Click here to watch the video