Is it too late to have a study published that was conducted 2 years ago?

[sswang00]

In my first year of Medical School, I did an independent study with a professor for an entire semester. Although it was only 2 credits, I wrote a decent (in my opinion) paper on the effects of neighborhood environmental factors on Diabetes.
I did an extensive Lit Review and collected my own data/results as well. The professor I worked with offered to help me submit the paper for publication when I finished, but I foolishly declined.

Unfortunately, he is no longer a professor at my school and I have no way of contacting him (has not replied to my emails).

Is it still possible to submit my paper to a Journal? I really have no idea on how to go about doing this. Can anyone offer me any help/advice?

Thanks in advance!
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[Tranquil]

In my first year of Medical School, I did an independent study with a professor for an entire semester. Although it was only 2 credits, I wrote a decent (in my opinion) paper on the effects of neighborhood environmental factors on Diabetes. I did an extensive Lit Review and collected my own data/results as well. The professor I worked with offered to help me submit the paper for publication when I finished, but I foolishly declined. Unfortunately, he is no longer a professor at my school and I have no way of contacting him (has not replied to my emails).

Is it still possible to submit my paper to a Journal? I really have no idea on how to go about doing this. Can anyone offer me any help/advice?

It can often take 2 years for a paper to get into a Journal so what we might have here is a 4 years delay and so it depends no entirely on what you have uncovered and the methods used. It is also true that when people see a delayed publication it is of concern as it might indicate your first set of results where not too good so you keep on going and then pooled all the results and now everything looks better.

You could publish it at a conference as a students paper and that is usually not hard to do as long as you can get funds to go. If you really think its of journal quality then firstly you need to check the current literature to see if what you did has advanced at all. Secondly, I would suggest you see one of your current professors and ask them for an opinion though to do that you need it in a more or less finished state.

 

[michaelrack]

I did an extensive Lit Review and collected my own data/results as well. The professor I worked with offered to help me submit the paper for publication when I finished, but I foolishly declined.

Unfortunately, he is no longer a professor at my school and I have no way of contacting him (has not replied to my emails).

..

Since this professor presumably had some involvement in the study, you need to contact him before publishing him this. It's not that hard to track down a med school prof- you may have to do this the old fashioned way and call him on the phone.

 

[sswang00]

You could publish it at a conference as a students paper and that is usually not hard to do as long as you can get funds to go. If you really think its of journal quality then firstly you need to check the current literature to see if what you did has advanced at all. Secondly, I would suggest you see one of your current professors and ask them for an opinion though to do that you need it in a more or less finished state.

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any information on how to go about publishing at a student's conference? I have been searching online and am having trouble finding information

 

[Tranquil]

Thanks for the advice. Do you have any information on how to go about publishing at a student's conference? I have been searching online and am having trouble finding information

No there are no student conferences as such but almost all conferences will have a student section. So look up just medical conferences and see if there is one suitable and then look though its programme. if you get stuck see one of your teachers as they may well know what is coming up. Best wishes

 

[joerenij]

I don't think so that there is any student conference.