Abstract
Journals provide a forum to advance medical knowledge. They publish original articles with new information and review articles that integrate information from the existing medical literature and inform readers with brief updates and/or images. They also provide an opportunity to publish commentary and letters to the editor, which opens up the possibility of dialogues regarding patient care. All activities supported by journals should be open, transparent, and unbiased.
Journals represent a community organized around medical information, and activities supported by medical journals should involve multiple contributors. These include the editor and the editorial board, authors, peer reviewers, and readers. Editors need to decide whether or not submitted articles are appropriate for the journal’s readers and whether or not the articles are clearly written without overt dishonesty or plagiarism. Peer reviewers need to approach each review as responsible custodians of the medical literature. In effect, peer reviewers are silent partners of the authors and need to provide critical and constructive assessment of the study design, study methods, results, and discussion. Authors are responsible for introducing the topic and explaining the potential importance of the study question. Authors must provide completely honest presentation of results and/or the information reviewed in the literature analysis. They must avoid duplicate publication and plagiarism. Authors ultimately must use the comments made by editors and reviewers to revise manuscripts for resubmission or for submission to other journals if rejected. Readers should thoughtfully review articles for their utility in ongoing patient care activities or their utility in the development of new projects. Readers should provide commentary to both editors and authors when appropriate.
Medical journals have multiple beneficial outcomes. Original articles provide new information and stimulate new projects. Review articles, updates, images, and case reports provide new information or help recall old information often with a better understanding. Authors benefit substantially since medical writing forces them to undertake a constructive analysis of the information at hand, a careful review of the medical literature, and an integration of the new information with old information. This should lead to new projects and/or better patient care. Involving students and residents in scholarly activities provides numerous benefits and supplements their clinical experience and training. These benefits include a better understanding of the rationale behind published work, more learning opportunities with advancement in their medical knowledge, and increased ability in accurately searching and reviewing the medical literature. In addition, these efforts help organize thinking and improve time management and writing skills. Residents who are involved in activities like authorship, editing, and reviewing articles are more likely to be successful researchers in the future. Peer reviewers benefit through their exposure to developing ideas and potentially unique approaches used by the authors to complete studies. The payoff is disproportionally high compared with the time required for review. Consequently, all authors should also contribute peer reviews to help journals and the medical community maintain the quality of information needed to promote better patient care.
The authors of this editorial have had the opportunity to participate in scholarly projects, including clinical studies, literature reviews, manuscript preparation, publication, and peer review. These activities have significantly increased our medical knowledge and understanding of the medical literature, have improved our ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in various clinical projects, and have uniformly enhanced patient care. We strongly encourage all readers to actively participate in the development and improvement of the medical literature. This journal solicits manuscript submissions, peer review contributions, and active commentary with authors and editors. All health care workers should try to participate in some journal activities.