Klitgården part II - Including closing the multidisciplinary survey and drawing the winners

The EST-team started the new year with high ambitions for quite a few publications, such as following through the Cochran review in process, analyzing the multidisciplinary survey data and not the least, to continue the RCT protocol planning.

In order to join common efforts, Kari-Anne invited the Norwegian part of the team (Åse, Linn, Hilde, Elisabeth and Melanie) as well as Silje, Karine and Hanne (two PhD students and a post doc from Kari-Anne’s other projects) to spend a week a Klitgården in Denmark. If you follow our blog, you may remember our previous stay in august 2018. Now, warm summer days were swapped for a more winter scenery, sometimes heavy storms and a quieter life in Skagen. None the less, morning swims in the sea were still tempting for some of us.

Kari-Anne, Hilde, Hanne, Silje, Melanie and Linn

On the everyday schedule, mornings were spent with writing and commenting on papers, whereas the afternoons concluded meetings and discussions across projects and groups. As part of the stay, daily walks along the beaches seem to be essential for good writing outcomes, just in line with Murakamis thoughts in his book “What I talk about when I talk about running” (2007) – one of the possible reads at the Klitgården library.  Even though we do not know if there is a direct correlation between the kilometers walked and the pages written during the week, everybody was satisfied with the production and progress. Some of us submitted revised papers, others are getting close for proof reading, such as the paper covering data from kindergarten teachers concerning stuttering and the Prospero review. Writing the paper is just one part, another is finding the best match for our different papers in the variety of available journals. This resulted in good arguments about advantages, strategic choices and reader preferences.

Hilde at work

We also got a first look at the results from our multidisciplinary survey about the support system for pre-school children who stutter, collecting data from speech-language pathologists, kindergarten teachers and public health nurses across Norway (see also previous blog posts). The survey generates data for several papers, and our main topic now was the comparison across professions considering different theoretical models and concepts. 

To thank all the participants for completing the survey, we promised having a reward lottery. Therefore, we pulled the winners of gift cards and small effects within each profession in a ceremonial session on the last evening. Congratulations to each of the winners, you will be noticed individually!

In the evening, we enjoyed some additional gatherings within the group such as “How to prepare for professorship applications” or the “Distiller help-desk” where even new words emerged just as “We are Cochran(e)ing together”.  

Åse and Hanne

Despite 10-12 packed working hours each day, the social aspect of the writing stay is just as important. Talking to each other and the other guests at Klitgården during meals around the former “Kings table” is a pleasure for mind and body, and even inspiring new ideas and co-operations across research fields.

As the week concluded, planes were made for finalizing some papers and next steps for  others. Travelling home “cross the sea” on the ferry, we really appreciated the quietness at Klitgården and are already looking forward for to come back, again!