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16
| 2 | 2010
Klinisk Biokemi i Norden
Finally we have realised
how to structure the writ-
ing of a manuscript: head
out in the middle, proceed
to the end, finish off at
start. The Arctic Expe-
rience 2010 at Finse turned out a successful
writing expedition to the freezing high moun-
tains of Norway.
3. Starting out with the material and methods
section
During January 26-29 2010 a group of 17 Nordic
persons joined the Arctic Experience 2010 at Finse
hotel 1222. One Polish, one German, three Finnish,
5 Swedes and 7 Norwegians arrived by train from
Bergen and Oslo. In addition to the group of medical
doctors, there were two medical students, a pharma-
cist, a physicist and laboratory technicians and scien-
tists. In between short lectures and social activities,
groups of 3-4 persons spent at least ten hours writing
a manuscript on the SKUP evaluation of the Accu-
Chek® blood glucose monitoring system. Supervision
was given by several representatives of SJCLI editorial
board. By March the four versions of the manuscript
will be merged into one final manuscript that is inten-
ded to be published in SJCLI before the summer.
4. Continuing with the results section
Due to airline technical problems, three of the par-
ticipants arrived a bit late. Group work functioned
satisfactory. No one slept in nor dropped out and
inspiration came easily. Food was pleasant and served
by young, tattooed, hard-rock loving Swedes. By the
end of the course, two out of four groups had finis-
Arctic Experience 2010
Åshild Amelie Sudmann
Department of Medical Biochemistry, Division of Medical Services, Oslo University Hospital,
Ullevål, Oslo.
ashildamelie.sudmann@ulleval.no
hed their manuscript while the other two were close
to finishing theirs. By then, the mean of the English
writing and speaking skills had improved signifi-
cantly. Everyone had joined the museum visit and
the dog sledging, while a few had even enjoyed skiing
and saunaing. Repeatability and reproducibility of
the hundreds of photo samples that were made still
remains unknown. Trueness of the experience came
close to what we dreamt of.
5. Now moving on to the discussion section
In the eyes of the participants Finse was a great loca-
tion, both in means of recruiting to the course as well
as advertising for Norway. The isolated hotel sur-
rounded by its beautiful scenery encouraged focus on
writing and socialising. Participants enjoyed ming-
ling and networking with Nordic colleagues whilst
willingly sharing experience and knowledge. Group
work represented a delightful change of context from
real-life individual writing of a scientific paper. The
presence of the highly profiled, devoted, but still
humble supervisors added a touch of exclusivity and
seriousness to the crowd.
1. Get ready for the introduction section
The Arctic Experience at Finse is organised by The
Scandinavian Journal of Clinical and Laboratory
Investigation (SJCLI) and The Nordic Society of
Clinical Chemistry (NFKK) biennially. The purpose
of the course is to enhance the writing skills of its
Nordic participants while offering a means of net-
work building in beautiful surroundings. The focus
of this second course was writing a manuscript based
on a report by The Scandinavian evaluation of labo-
ratory equipment for primary health care (SKUP) on
a blood glucose monitoring system (www.skup.nu -
SKUP/2009/74).
