Rejection of manuscripts by academic journals can be devastating for the early-career family medicine faculty members. Taking experience from teaching early-career underrepresented in medicine faculty members writing and scholarship skills, we identify and explain five lessons to be learned from rejected manuscripts. The five lessons are: (1) rejections teach journal scope, (2) rejections teach process, (3) rejection should lead to resubmission, (4) rejections reflect writing effort, and (5) rejections happen to papers, not authors. Early-career family medicine faculty can use these lessons for reassurance and to adapt behaviors to remain in the scholarship arena.
© 2022 by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.