Contents

-Summary of June Happy Hour Event

-AMWA Profile: Karin Lindstrom Bremer, MA, MA, PhD

-Bulletin Board 

“We talk a lot about how writing takes a lot of courage in my classes,” says Karin Lindstrom Bremer, MA, MA, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling and Student Personnel, College of Education, Minnesota State University, in Mankato. “Many of the graduate and doctoral students that I work with have very little experience in academic research and writing. I teach them about the research and writing process in a step by step approach.”

Karin serves as the research generalist within her department, teaching the core research courses in quantitative research methods and statistics. Her interest in research began as an undergraduate at Hamline University where she earned a B.A. in psychology with minors in writing and women’s studies. After working in the mental health field for five years, Karin attended University of Minnesota, earning an MA in Counseling and Student Personnel Psychology, an MA in Sport Psychology and a PhD in Family Social Science. She was hired for her current position, which she has held for seven years, prior to completing her doctorate.

During graduate training, Karin held many research assistantships at the University of Minnesota, working in the Department of Family Medicine and the Department of Nursing. “I had the opportunity to learn all phases of the research process – from designing a study, to setting a budget, to hiring personnel, to analyzing data, to writing publications, to closing down a study and storing data for future use,” says Karin.

Karin’s extensive background in writing and research, combined with her training in psychology and counseling, gives her students a unique advantage. “Many students are very anxious about the prospect of designing a research project and writing a thesis,” says Karin. “I work very hard with my classes and with students one on one to guide students to develop the skills they need and eliminate their anxiety.”

As Karin has moved through her training and career, she has continued to develop her own skills. “I am a very intentional person, and when I discover that I need to learn something new, I use my research skills to learn as much as I can about a given subject so that I can complete a task with competence,” says Karin. “When I began in my current position, I learned as much as I could about teaching writing and research methods – how to break down the process and then teach it to others. One of my writing mentors is my thesis advisor, Paul Rosenblatt, PhD, with whom I still stay in touch. He has written extensively and has shared his process with me. He is currently writing a book on how to help researchers who are ‘stuck’ in their research and writing projects. I am excited to read it and hoping to be a reviewer when it is completed.”

Karin learned about AMWA from Anne Marie Weber-Main, PhD, a medical editor at University of Minnesota. “I worked with Anne Marie in the research group in the Department of Family Medicine,” explains Karin. “She was a mentor for me, teaching me how to work with physicians and edit their papers for publication. She also shared her experiences with AMWA and their annual conferences. I thought it sounded like something I definitely wanted to pursue someday.” This past summer, Karin received a grant for professional development and attended the November 2013 AMWA conference in Columbus, Ohio, participating in both open sessions and workshops.

Karin and her husband, Joel, split their time between two homes in Minnesota – an apartment 15 miles south of Mankato during the week and their home in Pine City on the weekends. In her spare time, she enjoys spending her time with family and friends in the woods near her home in Pine City and writing letters. During her commuting time, she enjoys listening to spy novels and mysteries via audio books.

Bulletin Board

AMWA offers a variety of online educational activities including webinars, Google Hangouts, YouTube videos and more. Learn more at http://www.amwa.org/online_offerings.

The next webinar, PubMed for Power Users, will be available free to members on July 23, 2014, at 1 pm Eastern time (12 pm Central). Experts from the National Library of Medicine, Marie Collins and Kate Majewski, will provide strategies for searching and filtering.

In August, tune in for Oral Questioning Skills for Medical Communicators ($55 fee for members). Or check out the next Live Google Hangout. What’s a Google Hangout? Click here to find out.

Past webinars are archived on the site as well.