Sharing rejections…

I’m about to post three pieces of work that I submitted for presentation at the 2023 AMEE conference, all of which were rejected.

• Oral presentation | Is ‘being human’ enough? Preparing for clinical practice in the age of artificial intelligence.
• Workshop | ChatGPT and its implications for health professions education.
• Point of view | Human replacement by artificial intelligence: An heretical point of view.

I have two reasons for sharing these rejections:

• I put some time into preparing the submissions, and to leave them invisible on my computer makes that work wasted. This way, someone may get an idea that leads to something useful.
• Normalising the process of scholarship, which includes rejection of work that you’ve put time and energy into. We’re quick to celebrate success in academia, but less inclined to share failure.

And maybe it’s also worth adding that rejection need not equal failure, if the work being rejected was a stepping stone to something else. You may not have been able to get to the ‘something else’ without first having done the work that was rejected.

Progress depends on small, iterative failures that generate data you can use to improve.