Laughlin Prize winners: some further thoughts

It seems entirely reasonable to argue that the number of e-letters (letters submitted online to the journal in response to an article) and/or e-responses (email responses to the corresponding author) an article receives is a proxy measure of the interest generated by the article and also the wider interest in the journal. Albeit lacking the robustness of the ‘impact factor’, why not call this the journal ‘interest factor’? Although letters to the editor are way down the ‘importance’ hierarchy of academic publications, my letter on the Laughlin Prize ¹ still had six e-responses from trainees and four from the Laughlin Prize winners, hence my inference that The Psychiatrist probably has a high interest factor among its readers.

I give below an excerpt from an e-response I received from Professor McKeith, who won the Prize in 1981. I feel it is worth sharing because his eloquent, insightful and humble account answers three questions I set out to answer in my survey (to find out more about the winners, their preparation for examination and whether winning the prize influenced their later career choice).

Tidying my office for Christmas I came across your letter in November's Psychiatric Bulletin. As [the Laughlin Prize] winner in 1981 I fall outside of your survey dates but am intrigued by it. I agree that it is a rather uncelebrated achievement and the personal characteristics of… winners may account for some of that. It did have an influence on me I think, although one never knows what the alternative future would have looked like. I have met three other Laughlinites who have passed through my Department and I also went to visit Dr Henry P. Laughlin and his wife when I worked in the [USA] on an RCPsych travelling fellowship. They were a delightful couple. For what it is worth I agree with your extrapolation from a small sample size that enjoying the exam contributes to success although I also think that there is a huge amount of luck involved. My recollection of the Membership Exam (as it then was) was of a good day out and of not being at all intimidated by my two very distinguished London based psychotherapist examiners. I suspect that I could do this because I had been fortunate enough to have been trained in a first class centre where I was used to such grillings and it was relatively easy to take the exam in my stride as no different to my normal daily routine.