In 2024, JECCM reviewers continue to make outstanding contributions to the peer review process. They demonstrated professional effort and enthusiasm in their reviews and provided comments that genuinely help the authors to enhance their work.
Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding reviewers, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as a reviewer. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.
January, 2024
Michael Semanco, Lakeland Regional Health, USA
February, 2024
Morten A Horn, Oslo University Hospital, Norway
May, 2024
Samuel Y. Huang, Mount Sinai Hospital, USA
June, 2024
Tara Byrne, Galway University Hospital, USA
July, 2024
Harald M. Stauss, Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, USA
January, 2024
Michael Semanco
Michael Semanco, PharmD, BCPS, BCCCP, FCCM, is a Critical Care Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Lakeland Regional Health. He graduated with his PharmD from Duquesne University in 2002 and completed a PGY1 Pharmacy Residency at UPMC Mercy and a PGY2 Critical Care Residency at WellSpan York Hospital. He has been at his current position since 2006 and his practice includes caring for patients in the medical, surgical, and trauma ICUs. He is the current Chair of the Code 99 Committee and actively participates in various other committees including the ECMO Steering Committee, Council of Pharmacy Residency Research, and the ICU Committee. He is also a preceptor for multiple pharmacy residency programs and has served as the Director of both the PGY1 Pharmacy and PGY2 Critical Care Residency Programs. Dr. Semanco’s current research and practice areas of interest include pain, agitation, and delirium, resuscitation, and sepsis management. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
JECCM: What are the limitations of the existing peer-review system? What can be done to improve it?
Dr. Semanco: I think some of the limitations are the selection of the reviewers and the lack of a consistent definition of a peer. It is difficult to identify reviewers who have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide meaningful feedback concerning a submission. Reviewers should not only be an expert in the field of study, but they should also be an expert in study design and statistics. These skills are necessary in order to fully evaluate the study and to provide questions and constructive feedback to the authors. As for the peer concept, how do you define a peer to the author? Reviewers are usually volunteers who provide their personal time and effort in the review process. I would like to think reviewers are professionals who have a desire to participate in the process and ensure manuscripts are completed in an ethical manner. I think one way to improve the process is for journals to offer a mentorship program to young professionals to teach them the necessary skills and knowledge to become a skilled reviewer.
JECCM: Biases are inevitable in peer review. How do you minimize any potential biases during review?
Dr. Semanco: I try to limit bias by acknowledging any preconceived ideas I have about the topic being reviewed. I attempt to begin the review process with an open mind and place myself in the author’s role. What message is the author trying to deliver and is there validity to that message? As the reviewer, I try to evaluate the manuscript and answer those questions without thinking I already know the answers. I try to be objective and provide feedback based on the manuscript and not what my personal feelings or experiences are with the subject.
JECCM: Would you like to say a few words to encourage other reviewers who have been devoting themselves to advancing scientific progress behind the scene?
Dr. Semanco: Yes, being a reviewer is a very important part of the publication process. Although we are not financially compensated for our efforts, I think authors, and ultimately the readers, appreciate our time and expertise. Personally, I find it very challenging and rewarding to review manuscripts and feel I am contributing to patient care in a very different way than I do on a daily basis in my clinical role. I would encourage anyone who is interested, or who would like to publish manuscripts in the future, to get involved in the process and contribute to patient care in a different way!
(By Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
February, 2024
Morten A Horn
Morten Andreas Horn, MD, PhD, is a senior consultant in neurology at the Department of Neurology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. His PhD work from 2016 centered on a survey of Norwegian patients with X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy. In addition to working with leukodystrophies, he is currently the leader of a multidisciplinary team for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as a working group for intensive care neurology at his department. He has an invested interest in neuropalliation and in neuroethics, in particular the ethics of end-of-life issues.
Dr. Horn thinks peer review is the foundation of the system of scientific publications. Any reader can study a published paper and make up one’s own opinion of the quality and soundness of the research. However, there are few real options for a discussion about the methods, the results and the interpretation, once a paper has been published and printed. Therefore, the peer-review process offers a unique and timely opportunity for a critical review of the proposed paper. Importantly, the peer reviewer may offer the authors a chance to clarify issues that are unclear or ambiguous, or to revisit assertions that may not really hold water, or that may be interpreted in ways they will not condone. Therefore, in order to present their best arguments to the readership, authors will benefit from a thorough examination of their paper by a peer reviewer. In daily medical practice, with the ease afforded by the internet and sources like PubMed, medical papers are readily retrieved and used to inform complicated decisions with real consequences for patients. This practical application of medical science is founded on the reliability of the printed research – while the users rarely can be expected to perform their own expert review of the paper. Therefore, peer reviewers play an important role in safeguarding the quality of scientific papers.
In Dr. Horn’s experience, the main limitation of the peer-review system is the lack of time for qualified peer reviewers to critically review papers submitted for publication. Perhaps the productivity of the scientific community is simply too high for the peer-review system to keep up. Infrequently manuscripts at a glance are unfinished upon submittance. He suggests editors might play a more active role in rejecting obviously unfinished manuscripts (or asking for resubmitting a more completed document), with less involvement of peer review in the initial phase.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
May, 2024
Samuel Y. Huang
Samuel Y Huang, MD, MS, works for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. He went to school at Cornell University studying Biometry and Statistics which would be formational in his future projects in machine learning and artificial intelligence. He received a Master degree from Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences where he worked for the Public Health Research Institute doing cutting edge research in Cryptococcus neoformans performing CRISPR. He completed his medical education at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and he is currently at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Oceanside, New York. Recent projects seek to evaluate various interventions and its associated outcomes in the critical care unit. Learn more about him here.
Dr. Huang believes that the peer-review process allows for a joint collaboration between experts in the field to refine and polish high-quality pieces of research for the general public. He thinks that many insights from different areas of the world, and expertise come together in the peer-review process to work out flaws and assertions that may be obvious to some, but not to others. The process allows for a filter of medical information, so that the scientific community at large can benefit.
In Dr. Huang’s experience, the main limitation of the peer-review process is the lengthy process before scientific progress can be published. Oftentimes from the start of the project to its completion, it can last for years while the peer-review process can sometimes span months to years. This delays the process of innovation as the research then must be disseminated and eventually implemented into the mainstream.
According to Dr. Huang, while the burden of being a doctor and researcher is time-intensive, time allocated to peer review is necessary as it improves the acumen of the reviewer and improves the level of research on the whole.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
June, 2024
Tara Byrne
Tara Byrne is a Cardiothoracic Advanced Nurse Practitioner currently working in Galway University Hospital and an Adjunct Lecturer in University of Limerick Department of Nursing. Currently, she is a PhD student in Technology University of the Shannon where her focus of research is the pre-acceptability of digital health technology in respiratory medicine. She is passionate about research and innovation, particularly in the area of nursing and digital health technology. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
Tara thinks it is of utmost importance that reviewers have experience and knowledge in the subject area of the paper presented. It gives a greater understanding and appreciation of the paper under review. She always tries to remind herself of how hard it was to write her first paper and the negative comments she received; this she feels helps her to be critical in an empathic way in an attempt to encourage colleagues to continue the peer-review process.
Data sharing is prevalent in recent decades. With specific reference to healthcare, Tara, as a nurse, believes it is imperative in order to provide evidence-based practice and to improve clinical outcomes for service users. This is often neglected by colleagues who spend more time clinically than they do writing and sharing data. While she acknowledges the clinical burden of colleagues, she reminds herself that the service she provides is based on the data shared by others. Overall speaking, data sharing shapes the clinical practice and improves service user outcomes.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
July, 2024
Harald M. Stauss
Harald M. Stauss, MD, PHD, received his MD in Pharmacology from the University of Heidelberg in Germany and completed a medical residency in Physiology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. He was associated with the University of Iowa for 16 years before joining Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine in Las Cruces, NM. His research centers around the autonomic nervous system control of cardiovascular function, metabolism, and inflammation. He developed the HemoLab software for hemodynamic data acquisition and data analysis that is used worldwide. Dr. Stauss has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, and his research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the American Heart Association, the American Osteopathic Association, the American Academy of Osteopathy, and the National Psoriasis Foundation. Currently, he studies the effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in patients with psoriasis and atrial fibrillation. Learn more about him here.
There are many important aspects of the established peer-review system. In Dr. Stauss’s opinion, the most important function of peer review is to ensure validity of published research findings. Researchers rely on published research findings to develop new scientific hypotheses and to design their own research studies. Politicians also rely on published research findings to develop public policies. Perhaps most importantly, clinicians rely on published research findings to offer the best possible care to their patients. Without a rigorous review process, it would be impossible to rely on published research findings, which would severely slow the progress of scientific discovery, result in questionable public policies, and – most importantly – might place patients at risk. Thus, in his opinion, peer reviewers have a tremendous responsibility and need to take the peer-review process very seriously. The consequences of a lack of a proper peer-review system would be deleterious not only for researchers, but also for the whole society.
According to Dr. Stauss, while reviewing papers, there are many aspects that reviewers must bear in mind, such as confidentiality and objectivity of the review process as well as potential conflicts of interest. He tries to focus his review on potential flaws in the methodology, including data analysis and statistics, presentation of the results, and validity of the conclusions based on the results presented. However, he tries to resist the temptation of making suggestions that are reflective of his own opinions which may be different from those of the authors, especially if these are just opinions and not proven facts. With this regard, it is sometimes difficult to accept that the manuscript is the work of the authors and not the work of the reviewers. He believes it is important that reviewers do not impose their own opinions on the authors. However, it is the obligation of the reviewers (and the journal editors) to ensure the validity of the manuscripts.
“On average, I am reviewing about one manuscript every week or every other week for various journals. I am selective in what manuscripts I review and limit it to only those manuscripts that I truly have some expertise and interest in. For me, reviewing a manuscript that falls within my area of expertise and interest is a welcome change from my teaching obligations and my own research activities, rather than a burden. I have learned a lot by reviewing manuscripts, which has improved my teaching and research activities. Thus, I see reviewing manuscripts as an opportunity to learn and grow. My institution, Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, also allows me to allocate time in my contractual work assignment for professional activities, which includes reviewing manuscripts,” says Dr. Stauss.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
