It takes a special type of madness: Working with a medical journal
By Professor Ian Davis, MBBS (Hons) PhD FRACP FAChPM FAHMS
Why on earth would anyone volunteer to work with a medical journal as an Associate Editor? That must require some special level of masochism and idiocy, right? I mean, everyone knows that journals are the Bad Guys. In what other industry do we let people take our work; make us shoehorn it into their own arbitrary templates; sometimes reluctantly agree to publish it, after thinking about it for a long time and bouncing it back and forth with no guarantees; and sometimes even charge us for the privilege. Surely anyone working with them has simply gone to the dark side and no longer has any credibility as an academic or clinician. And who has the time for this anyway?
Except... what if that were not true? Perhaps some journals genuinely act with integrity. They are truly interested in advancing the field, bringing people together, giving opportunities including for early career researchers or others who might not have the same opportunities as their peers, and ensuring that the quality of what is published is at the highest level.
This is why I am an Associate Editor for Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology (TAMO). I was asked to join a few years ago, and before accepting I looked into it carefully. The content of the journal was relevant to my interests, and seemed to be of a very high quality. It includes a good mix of types of papers: original research, reviews, commentaries. It periodically produces special collections around particular themes, which seemed to be well managed and comprehensive. The editor seemed to be very engaged and committed. And it didn’t hurt that it was a Q1 oncology journal with a respectable and rising impact factor. Maybe I could even do some good here.
Fast forward, and to my amazement I’ve been doing this now for five years. I’ve had invitations to join other journals and have even taken up some of those; but I’ve said no to many, many more, and in fact terminated my involvement with one – more on that later. I’ve found my time with TAMO to be very rewarding. The editorial team is really outstanding, and we communicate frequently about strategic directions for the journal and opportunities to highlight topics or themes, often through Special Collections.
But there are some other points that really make this journal stand out:
TAMO gives opportunities. A good example is our special collections. This allows us to bring in guest editors, but also provides opportunities for clinicians and researchers earlier in their career to write and publish in a strong journal that is aimed at the audience they want to reach. TAMO has also provided opportunities for these people to participate in the editorial board and to be mentored by more experienced colleagues.
Diversity. TAMO includes a rich mixture of genders, nationalities, seniority, and clinical and research interests. This diversity itself highlights where we continue to lack diversity, and the journal continues to work towards improving this. This means that it is much less likely to become an echo chamber where we pat ourselves on the backs without awareness of where the gaps are.
Active engagement with authors. I have noticed that the editorial team is willing to converse with authors in order to strengthen their manuscripts and ensure that any concerns raised by reviewers are addressed appropriately. TAMO strives for timely review of papers, but like all journals it is constrained by what people are prepared to donate in terms of their time as reviewers.
Integrity. Occasionally something slips through the net, and work is published that contains what turns out to be fraudulent or manipulated data. I have seen how the editor approaches this. The process is scrupulously fair to the authors, but also uncompromising, and papers are retracted if and when necessary. This might seem like a small and behind-the-scenes thing, but it is not: it is critically important that false or misleading information is expunged, and that a journal is seen to take fair and decisive action where necessary. I saw how another journal approached the same problem very differently when it was pointed out to them, and without going into details, I left that editorial board very soon after.
Flexibility. Full disclosure: TAMO provided a small honorarium to me for two years, before I realised that this was not permitted by my institution. I wrote to ask that it no longer be paid to me and suggested it could be donated to my institution, where it will support junior researchers to perform research or attend meetings. The journal was happy to do this and to respect my wishes.
Open access. We can talk about between the need for open access publishing balanced against the ethical and other implications of levying publication charges. That’s beyond the scope of this blog, but TAMO is open to discussions even on that point.
It’s not all perfect; not many things are. I still don’t have enough time, although that is not the fault of the journal, and they try to make things as easy for me as possible. I do know that my involvement with the journal is not only not onerous, but in fact enjoyable and valuable to me. At the risk of sounding like madness, as the title of this blog suggests: you should seriously think about getting yourself involved in a journal like this one. Why should the idiotic masochists have all the fun?
To join the TAMO Editorial team by becoming a Guest Editor, submit a proposal.
Discover TAMO’s current Special Collections and see if your work could be a good fit. Read through TAMO’s published Special Collections.
About the Author
