As someone who teaches, I spend the summer recharging my batteries to get ready for the next academic year. As someone who has responsibility for people who teach, I spend the summer wondering why more people aren’t preparing teaching material for the next academic year! It’s very stressful being me…
Anyway, I guess what I should be doing is seeing if I can make such prep easier. Which is what I’ve done! You’re very welcome…
When our new team took over the editorial roles of the Journal of Forensic & Legal Medicine at the start of the year, one of the things we introduced was a new type of article called a Commentary. These were short, snappy pieces about a particularly current and pertinent topic which may be overlooked by traditional academic publication formats. We usually invited people to write for us, and the tone was more informal than usual as the authors presented an opinion piece from their expert perspective.
Now, because they were short and sweet (and sometimes a little controversial), I found that they were really useful in my own forensic teaching sessions. They were really useful when set as in-class reading (because they were quick to go through) and then used as a springboard for debate and discussion. And because they were useful for me, I thought that they may also be useful for you. So we’ve drawn them together onto a single page and made them freely available for you all! It’s like an early Xmas, I know…
So please feel free to use them: set them as wider reading, create debates, challenge their position statements, whatever. They cover topics as wide-ranging as the impact of Brexit, the fentanyl crisis, forensic provider accreditation, the status of forensic research, and performance enhancing drugs. The crucial thing is that they are a timely resource which we will continue to update with new Commentaries.
I hope you find them as useful as I have – and that this new resource means that you have one less thing to get ready for next semester.