Abstract
The ANZJP has had an active Trainee Advisory Board (TAB) for a good many years. It is an initiative that I implemented in 2012 and an aspect of the Journal that I am particularly proud of as it has encouraged engagement with the ANZJP from those early in their careers and those wishing to get a taste of academia. Over time, a number of trainees who have served on the board have been inspired to pursue academic endeavours involving research and teaching, and having learnt about the inner workings of publishing, have managed to go on and become published authors themselves.
Like the main advisory board, the TAB is bi-national, with perhaps a slight bias in taste towards Australia, and within Australia, a strong flavour of Sydney. However, with respect to gender, it is almost completely a female advisory board, which were it the case would earn it the apt acronym FAB!
Over the years, I’ve worked with the TAB in a variety of ways. Usually, one-to-one, and sometimes in small groups. Many of the members have made their own way and developed links with associate editors and other advisory board members. In addition, we have tried to meet annually, to review the TAB’s undertakings and discuss new possibilities and ideas. And so, as my second term as editor draws to a close, I thought it would be interesting to ask members of the TAB to pose a couple of questions each. Two-thirds of them responded promptly and asked several questions. Hence, in this editorial, I have attempted to answer a select few of the many questions posed.
The questions I have chosen to address are those that I felt would be of interest to a broad audience and perhaps also offer some useful insights. In each case, I have indicated who asked the question and only in one instance have I rephrased the question for clarity.
What were the benefits or problems of having the trainee advisory board?
From the Editor’s perspective, there’s no real downside to having a TAB and generally speaking, trainees have been much more willing to engage and be of assistance (than other members of the Advisory Board) with all aspects of the journal, ranging from reviewing brief articles through to giving frank advice on new initiatives and ideas. I suppose the question should be more so for trainees themselves, what is it that they feel they have got out of the role?
From what I have observed, some trainees have immersed themselves in the role completely and have used it as a means of gaining mentorship. For others, it has allowed the establishment of academic collaborations around specific interests. A good example that immediately comes to mind is the ‘Phenoms’ group that involved Connie and Neelya. We regularly discussed and examined aspects of psychopathology and phenomenology – an interest that germinated from a scholarly project. In terms of downsides or problems, I suppose I would have liked many more trainees to have been involved; however, one key limitation is the number of senior people willing to devote time and provide suitable mentorship. But overall, the TAB has been a very successful part of the ANZJP and benefitted many – myself included.
What attracted you and was your main impetus for assuming such a big role as Editor?
When I became Editor, I had already been serving as an Editor of another journal – Acta Neuropsychiatrica. This was, and still is, a journal belonging to the same original publishing house as Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica (APS), namely Blackwell Munksgaard. The Editor of APS at the time, circa 2005, Povl Munk-Jørgensen had been a mentor of mine and had involved me in his journal in various capacities – for example, allowing me to be a Guest Editor from time to time on special issues. Therefore, when the opportunity arose, he recommended that I serve as Editor of Acta Neuropsychiatrica, which at that time was ailing and in need of a boost of energy and ideas. I took on the role with gusto and thoroughly enjoyed being Editor-in-Chief of the journal, especially as none of the ideas I proposed were ever refused.
It was in this journal that I developed new sections such as ‘Brain Bytes’, ‘Pictures and Prose’ and other alliterative pieces such as ‘Statistically Speaking’, ‘Intervention Insights’, ‘Book Bash’ and ‘Comment and Critique’. I was given an opportunity to re-invent the journal from cover to cover and did so with zest. I began by selecting a striking image that captured the idea of peering into the brain, as if one were looking for the mind – hidden among the myriad neurons.
With the experience I gained from editing this journal, I suppose I didn’t really view the Editorship of ANZJP as a ‘big role’. Instead, I recognised that the journal had tremendous potential and that this could be achieved by diversifying its content. Hence, I introduced new sections such as perspectives, viewpoints and debates and increased correspondence through commentaries and letters. I was also attracted by the fact the journal was predominantly clinical, whereas Acta Neuropsychiatrica had, and still maintains, a strong basic neuroscience focus, which includes many animal studies. I had enjoyed this for a while, because of my grounding in benchtop pharmacology and animal research, but my immersion in clinical research, and in particular in clinical psychiatry, meant that ANZJP was a much better and more natural fit.
Your term as Editor-in-Chief was pivotal for the advancement of the journal with regard to its impact factor. Can you tell us about your role in this? How did you maintain the high standard of the journal once this was achieved?
There’s no doubt that the impact factor is an important metric. But it is equally important to appreciate its vulnerabilities and what it truly reflects. For instance, it can be easily manipulated and even distorted, and when this happens, it becomes a meaningless statistic.
However, the IF does serve as a crude indicator of the success of the journal and a high IF will attract academics wishing to showcase their research. Indeed, it is one of the more reliable means of improving the quality of submissions to a journal.
As an editorial team, we set our goal as having an impact factor above 4 and near 5, which, thanks to a concerted effort and some highly cited papers, we eventually achieved. From then on, we simply maintained a consistent approach to all aspects of peer review, and this gradually improved the quality of papers being published in the journal. My specific role was to keep the IF in mind when making strategic publishing decisions, even though I still do not believe that it alone should define a journal, or indeed a paper. However, in practice, there is no getting away from the fact that the IF does influence the decisions of authors to submit to a journal. And certainly, during my time as Editor, I have seen a considerable improvement in the quality of papers that the ANZJP attracts, and this is to a large extent a consequence of its IF having increased.
How is the ANZJP demonstrating gender equality? Should this even be a consideration?
This is an important question, particularly for a speciality such as psychiatry, where many practising clinicians are women. In this regard, the TAB is a good example of what can be achieved, and out of the nine current members, only one is male. I also actively appointed females to the Methodological Advisors section of the journal, bringing on board, for example, Drs Ute Vollmer-Conna, Pritha Das, Carissa Coulston and Kristina Fritz. Similar additions have been made to other sections of the board, which I hope in the future will gradually translate to greater representation at associate, deputy and editor levels.
The second part of the question, as to whether it should be a consideration, is equally critical. Because without active consideration of this issue, it is unlikely that change will come about automatically. Just looking at the list of Former Editors, it’s clear that a female editor of ANZJP is long overdue.
I enjoyed reading the Erudite Encounters series. If you could interview anyone, living or dead, for a final Erudite Encounter, who would it be and why?
I too enjoyed the Erudite Encounters, which apart from revealing how fortunate I have been to be influenced by such accomplished people, highlighted the themes of perseverance in style and the importance of pursuing of one’s intellectual passions. The list of people whose brains I would like to pick is virtually endless, especially if you allow those who have passed on. However, in addition to the many tutors, seniors and mentors from whom I have had the privilege of tutelage, I would perhaps have liked to include some of my contemporaries with whom I trained and from whom I learnt very different and important skills. Two of my dearest colleagues from my time on the Cambridge psychiatry rotation come to mind. First, Alex Mitchell, who even as a baby was probably a budding academic, questioning everything around him and only believing that which he could prove with solid data. Second, Sumit Anand, who by sharing his own personal experiences highlighted for me the importance of critical self-analysis and the inherent complexity of personality and relationships. Having colleagues who were smart, supportive and sincere has been of immense personal and professional significance and something that I only realised much later in life. Looking back, I would have liked to interview some of them to compare and contrast our experiences.
What do you think are some of the key strengths of the ANZJP that set it apart from other journals?
I think there are many things that set the ANZJP apart, and its vision at least during my tenure as Editor has always been somewhat unique and ambitious. One of the key changes I made to the journal was to change its name to the ‘ANZJP’. In part, this was meant to de-emphasise its parochial role and attract an international audience, both for submitting and subscribing to the journal, but also as an audience in the form of wider readership. However, I also felt it was an easier name to say than the full name and it made it catchier and more distinctive – a point that was noted by many, soon after the change was made. And while other College journals such as the British and American Journals of Psychiatry also court international audiences, I felt it was particularly important for the ANZJP because of its unique geography – sitting on the doorstep of Asia.
In addition to its punchy name, the bright colour scheme of the journal, and its many sections that cater to different audiences, sets it apart, as does the willingness of the editorial team to consider all manner of articles from every corner of the world. Many journals reject papers immediately and have a very narrow scope; however, the ANZJP has been far more willing to review papers and also consider articles that may already have been considered elsewhere. The journal has also adhered to principles of best practice, ensuring the integrity and quality of what is published, and this is reflected in the production quality of the journal, which has also always been of an exceptionally high standard, especially under the direction of Sage. And while I have spearheaded many of these ideas – none of it would have been possible without a committed and dedicated team. For this I am extremely grateful – and I have been very fortunate to have had a very loyal and hardworking set of colleagues who have shared my vision and supported the journal in every way possible. This I believe is what has truly set the ANZJP apart!
Is there an article that you never published but now wish you had?
It’s remarkably difficult to keep track of papers that don’t make it into the journal. Occasionally authors do loop back and let the journal know that their paper has been accepted elsewhere, especially if they regard the other journal as being better in some way or another. I suppose it’s a way of feeling justified and being able to imply that the journal somehow made a mistake by rejecting their work. However, I never felt that way, and even in instances where papers have been published elsewhere, in higher impact journals, I have always been pleased for the authors because I know how difficult it is to get published in the first place. Furthermore, and the truth of the matter, is that in most cases, feedback from the ANZJP likely contributed to improving the paper. And so, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, there has never been a paper that I have felt in retrospect was somehow – ‘the one that got away’!
What do you see as the main challenges and advancements in academic psychiatry in the past 10 years?
The latter part of the 20th century and the first two decades of this century have witnessed a resurgence of biologism within psychiatry. In the 1990s, there was mounting excitement as the genome was being mapped and neuroimaging made the brain far more accessible than had ever been imagined possible. The enthusiasm of this decade (dubbed the decade of the brain) spilled into the 21st century, creating an air of expectation. However, more recently, there has been mounting concern that perhaps the pendulum has swung too far. And that the ambition to identify a neurobiological basis for psychiatric disorders risks diminishing the importance of the human experience. This concern certainly resonates with patients, for whom diagnostic labels and biological findings remain incomplete explanations of their illnesses. Even in academia, there is growing frustration with the lack of any fundamental breakthrough – for instance, no single gene or brain region has been identified in relation to psychiatric disorders and instead, all that is evident is ever-increasing complexity. For example, any changes that have been found all seem to emanate from a multitude of factors that can be traced back to both genes and the environment. Similarly, the functioning of the brain appears to involve immensely sophisticated neural networks and the activation patterns that these create are extremely difficult to interpret and understand. Added to these inherent challenges, clinical psychiatry has perhaps moved away from best practice because of imperfect classificatory systems and the under-resourcing of health services.
In my view, for young doctors, the choice of psychiatry as a speciality should be made on the basis of it being interesting and intellectually challenging and not solely because of lifestyle factors. Thus, the challenge for psychiatry is to preserve its core function of effectively treating and caring for those with mental illness while embedding its practice within medicine so as to incorporate scientific knowledge and clinical experience. In addition, psychiatry should embrace the knowledge gained through other disciplines such as ethics and philosophy, and more actively inform the law and public health policy.
What were the main challenges that you and the editorial board faced, and is there something about your role you are glad to leave behind?
I have discussed the challenges faced by the editorial board and myself elsewhere and so, if I may, I will perhaps mention those aspects of my role that I am glad to leave behind. Let me start by saying that by and large, I have enjoyed the role immensely and overall it has been a privilege and honour to serve as the Editor of ANZJP. The role has afforded me the opportunity to restructure the journal and facilitate the communication of thoughts and ideas. I have valued this tremendously. However, hand in hand with innovation comes greater responsibility and the need for more effort. The implementation of new ideas, new formats, the development of new collaborations and drawing on others to take interest and contribute – all requires time and energy. Over the years, this has meant that gradually, as the journal has become ‘bigger’ in terms of its scope, diversity and impact – in other words, more ‘successful’ – it has naturally necessitated a lot more work. And while much of this has been enjoyable, I am certainly looking forward to reclaiming my evenings and weekends. And while I have managed to continue with most of my interests outside of academia such as music and art, there is no doubt that these have suffered. And so, I am also looking forward to being able to devote more time to my hobbies. In addition, while having to deal with problems is an integral part of the role of Editor, it is nevertheless unpleasant, and so this is another aspect of the role that I won’t really miss and will be ‘glad to leave behind’.
Conclusion
Just as a TAB can be used to mark the page in a book, denote the existence of information, or be used to identify something of note, so too the ANZJP TAB has served to anchor the journal to its most important roots – the fresh and untainted minds of the trainees. Having a young, enthusiastic and inquisitive board has been vital to the successful development of the journal, and I am grateful to the trainees, both past and present, for their stellar efforts over the years.
Table of Trainee Advisory Board members.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
G.S.M. has received grant or research support from National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Rotary Health, NSW Health, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Ramsay Research and Teaching Fund, Elsevier, AstraZeneca, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Otsuka and Servier and has been a consultant for AstraZeneca, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Otsuka and Servier.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
