Hollie Swanson: Publishing a manuscript as a class project....

The recent publication of the manuscript entitled "Current and Emerging Uses of Statins in Clinical Therapeutics: A Review" with my co-authors (Jonathan T. Davies, Spencer F. Delfino, Chad E. Feinberg, Meghan F. Johnson, Veronica L. Nappi, Joshua T. Olinger and Anthony P. Schwab) represents a milestone of a year-long, collaborative endeavor.
My journey with this group of talented and intelligent students began last fall in PHA 422 (Treatment of Human Diseases) when I assigned a case study that focused on how the recent guidelines by the American Heart Association may impact our use of statins. As I read their insightful answers to the questions that I had posed, I became inspired to ask the class if they would be interested in expanding their work into a review article. Upon receiving their consent, I then contacted the Journal of Lipid Insights who agreed to handle our manuscript as an invited, peer-review publication. I’m not sure we really knew what we were in for, but I can assure you that it was a tremendous learning experience for each one of us.
We worked both independently and in extensive group editing sessions that began in the afternoons and extended into the late evening. When I now read this manuscript, I can hear the voice of each student and recall our lively debates on issues that ranged from choosing the best word to be used in a sentence to interpreting the results from the studies that we reviewed.
Not only do we now better understand the pharmacology that underlies the use of statins, but we also better appreciate the importance of teamwork, trust and having the will to persevere.I commend these students for their efforts and am deeply appreciative of my privilege of serving as their professor. It is my hope that this publication may inspire additional students to successfully undertake similar challenging collaborative efforts.

Hollie Swanson
Professor
Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences
Director, Women’s Executive Leadership Development
University of Kentucky