In 2024, APM 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
Raj Singh, Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, USA

February, 2024
Daniel E. Roos, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia

March, 2024
Joanna L. Hart, University of Pennsylvania, USA

April, 2024
Noriyuki Kawabata, Osaka Rosai Hospital, Japan

May, 2024
Sebastiano Mercadante, La Maddalena Cancer Center, Italy

June, 2024
Rares Miscov, Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark

July, 2024
Ramkumar Govindaraj, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia

August, 2024
Andrew Foreman, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia

January, 2024

Raj Singh

Raj Singh is an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, with a clinical focus on central nervous system, thoracic, and pediatric malignancies (both primary and metastatic). He has research interests in stereotactic ablative radiation therapy (SABR) and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for oligometastatic disease and optimization of dose/fractionation schedule based on primary histology as well as patient selection in both adult and pediatric settings as well as SRS for non-malignant conditions. He has published his work in JAMA Oncol, Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys, Radiother Oncol, Neurosurgery, J Neurosurg, J Neurooncol, Neuro-Oncol Adv, and Am J Clin Oncol on topics such as SRS for brain metastases and spinal metastases, SABR for various extracranial metastases, SRS for trigeminal neuralgia, dural arteriovenous fistulas, recurrent brain metastases, and dose escalation for glioblastoma. Connect with him on X/Twitter @ Raj_Singh_MD and LinkedIn.

A constructive review, in Dr. Singh’s view, aims at improving the manuscript upon the hard work that authors have put into. He points out that he can learn something new when reviewing papers and he views a constructive review as one that aims to maximize the knowledge that can be disseminated from each manuscript. On the contrary, destructive reviews are those that reviewers have not taken the time to thoroughly read through a paper in its entirety to provide proper feedback. He believes this to be a disservice to authors. Moreover, he finds it counterproductive to be quite opinionated and give negative reviews of papers if one disagrees regarding potential conclusions of papers. The role of the reviewer is to ensure that the analyses or presentation of science is honest and fair, and then it is the role of readers to come to their own conclusions regarding the importance/merit of science.

In Dr. Singh’s opinion, peer review plays an essential role to ensure that manuscripts that are being considered for publication present an honest, unbiased, and truthful analysis of the data. It can also help to significantly improve the quality of science presented, as peer reviewers can provide a "fresh take" on the manuscript based on their own experiences.

As a radiation oncologist, Dr. Singh spends most days trying his best to improve the quality of life of patients through the use of palliative radiation therapy, either aimed at alleviating symptoms or preventing complications from metastatic disease (i.e., respiratory distress from pulmonary metastases, strokes/seizures/hemorrhages from brain metastases, or pathologic fractures from bone metastases). He reckons that this work is vital to the public. The focus of the APM on continuing improving their work for patients in the palliative medicine cannot be understated.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

February, 2024

Daniel E. Roos

Prof. Daniel E. Roos, BSc, (Hons), DipEd, AMusA, MBBS, MD, FRANZCR, is a semi-retired Senior Radiation Oncologist (RO) at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia. Having initially trained and worked for 3 years as a maths/physics teacher, he changed careers to medicine, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) in 1992. He was the inaugural Windeyer Fellow in Clinical Oncology at Mt Vernon Cancer Centre, Middlesex, UK in 1993, where his interest in research was stimulated. He has worked in Adelaide since, becoming an active researcher with the Trans Tasman Radiation Oncology Group (TROG) and serving on numerous RANZCR Committees, currently including the Faculty of Radiation Oncology Council and Radiation Oncology Research Committee (Chair). He has about 130 publications with special interests in lymphoma, radiosurgery, palliative radiotherapy and RO training and research.

In Dr. Roos’s opinion, whilst not perfect, this is the time-honored mechanism for trying to ensure that published research is accurate, valid and relevant. Hence, it is ideally performed by researchers interested and experienced in the topic.

From a reviewer’s point of view, Dr. Roos points out that conflicts of interest need to be declared by authors (with exclusion from review if significant), and the reality of bias needs to be borne in mind throughout the review process and acknowledged where appropriate.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

March, 2024

Joanna L. Hart

Dr. Joanna Hart is a pulmonary and critical care physician focused on improving the experience of serious illness. Her research portfolio uses mixed methods to amplify the voices of patients and families affected by serious illnesses and transform health care to better meet their needs. Examples of her current work, funded by the NIH, include a longitudinal study of how patients with chronic lung disease and their families think about and discuss health expectations and a clinical trial of a coping skills training program for patients with chronic lung disease and their families. A large portion of her work seeks to improve the primary palliative care for patients with tobacco-associated lung disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, including integrating these concepts into standard pulmonary care. She also has ongoing work on meeting the social needs of patients and families in healthcare settings and providing trauma-informed and family-centered inpatient care. Connect with her on X @JHartMD.

Dr. Hart reckons that one of the major limitations of the existing reviewing system is that most reviewers are volunteers. As such, they are balancing reviewing with many other priorities, so many highly qualified reviewers have limited bandwidth to use on reviewing. In addition, she thinks that another challenge is matching reviewers efficiently with papers based on the necessary topical and methodological expertise to provide a comprehensive review. Having a centralized, up-to-date reviewer database that includes reviewers’ interests and comfort with methods might improve the mutually beneficial matches.

From Dr. Hart’s perspective, what the reviewers should possess is that reviewers should have sufficient compassion to remember that a submitted paper, regardless of its quality, is most often a person’s or a team’s hard work. Comments back to authors should be constructive and focused on the product, including sincere thoughts about how the product could be improved. She often encourages early-stage investigators to participate as a peer reviewer. This provides an important opportunity to perspective-take as a critical reader of scientific writing and as someone providing feedback to another scientist. What’s more, she points out that reviewers should also have at least topical or methodological expertise, or humility to admit when they do not. A good sense of the body of literature on a topic or methodologic standards can provide a value-add from the reviewer’s investment of time and attention and help authors improve the paper. Peer reviewers also should represent and/or defend the goal of improved diversity of perspectives and life experiences informing new scientific contributions. This includes having high standards for the papers they review in terms of inclusion of participants, study design that might limit the quality of the output, and how authors collectively speak about certain groups of people in the scientific literature they publish.

“Finding time to review is indeed a struggle at times. I go through periods when I have more time for peer review and periods when I decline more requests to prevent slowing down the process or providing a lower-quality review than is my goal. I typically work peer review into my writing blocks, as I often find reading and thinking about others’ work motivates my own manuscript or grant writing. This strategy also gives me a sense of accomplishment, as it’s a faster process to finish a review than it is to finish a larger project!”

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

April, 2024

Noriyuki Kawabata

Dr. Noriyuki Kawabata is a deputy director of palliative care center at Osaka Rosai Hospital, Osaka prefecture, Japan. He is engaged in symptom management for suffering patients, consultations as a core member of palliative care team, research, and medical resident education as a palliative care physician. He is not only a palliative care physician but also board-certified in internal medicine and neurosurgery, allowing his to involve from a wide perspective using these experience and expertise. He is especially interested in symptom management and planning to execute research in this field. He holds qualifications as an M.D., Ph.D., and MBA, and therefore, he has reviewed in fields of palliative care and business in APM.

APM: What role does peer review play in science?

Dr. Kawabata: Peer reviewing is essentially the process of creating better articles. It involves collaborative efforts to ensure that a different interpretation and unfamiliar known knowledge that authors have not considered are pointed out, erroneous statistical analyses are checked, and ultimately, valuable, impactful article for the world are produced.

APM: What do you regard as a constructive/destructive review?

Dr. Kawabata: Meeting deadline is a given. Good reviews aim to lead to higher-quality outcomes as described early. In contrast, poor reviews can be directive unwilling to acknowledge perspectives other than reviewer’s own, or displaying a self-centered attitude to authors. In addition to this, it may be nonactionable criticisms that boast reviewer’s superiority. If criticisms are valid but impractical, it implies that the article might not be at an acceptable level, and it should be addressed honestly.

APM: Peer reviewing is often anonymous and non-profitable, what motivates you to do so?

Dr. Kawabata: In a word, reciprocity. I have found it beneficial when I am the author, and I feel my own articles have been elevated to a higher level through this process. Moreover, participating in peer review enables me to gain insights into the characteristics of journals that approach me for review and what they are looking for.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

May, 2024

Sebastiano Mercadante

Sebastiano Mercadante is the Director of the Main Regional Center for Pain Relief and Palliative Care at La Maddalena Cancer Center, Palermo, Italy. He is also the scientific director of a regional home palliative care program SAMOT, and an adjunct professor of palliative medicine, MD Anderson, University of Texas, USA. He is a specialist in Anesthesiology and Science of Nutrition at University of Palermo. He has made more than 700 lectures at national and international congresses, and is the associate editor, editorial board member and/or referee of more than 40 international peer-reviewed journals in the field of pain and symptom management, palliative care, and anesthesiology. He published more than 500 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, more than 40 chapters and books. He received many awards: Award Umberto Veronesi 2003, Award of Excellence in Scientific Research, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Boston 2010, Award John Mendelson MD, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre “for extraordinary contribution in palliative care” Houston, 2013, and Award for International Clinical Impact. Learn more about him here.

As a reviewer, Dr. Mercadante thinks that reducing biases during the peer-review process is of paramount importance to ensure the integrity of the process. The first thing to consider would be whether there are sufficient time and competence regarding the assigned topic. It is also important to get familiarised with the requirements of the journal that the review is done for before reading the manuscript in detail. It is essential to judge only the scientific quality of the manuscripts, rather than considering personal issues. The determined period for a peer review should be less than 2 weeks to respect the long time spent by authors to prepare a manuscript, The review, negative or positive, should offer advice to improve the manuscript, to eventually allow a re-submission to another journal. As experience for a reviewer, it is interesting to read about what others in the field have been working on, as researchers always have new ideas about the current knowledge gaps and how to design the trials to address those research questions. Reviewers have the optimal position to stay on top of the most recent research and get aspirations about new research ideas, other than contributing to medical research.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

June, 2024

Rares Miscov

Dr. Rares Miscov, MD, is a 5th year resident in neurosurgery at the Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark. He has been practicing medicine since 2017, after finishing his studies at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Iuliu Hatieganu” in Cluj Napoca, Romania. His interest in neurosurgery began in the 11^th grade and he has participated in different congresses, workshops, courses through the Scientific Circle of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Cluj, and he moved to Denmark around 6 years ago to pursue his career in the specialty. He has been involved in different research projects, spanning from chronic subdural hematomas to neuromodulation. Part of the research is in collaboration with the Nordic Young Neurosurgeons Research Collaborative (NYNReC) and Danish Chronic Subdural Hematoma Study group (DACSUHS). Connect with him on LinkedIn.

APM: Why do we need peer review?

Dr. Miscov: Peer reviewing is an important element of research, which can shed light on aspects otherwise hidden for the research teams looking to publish their materials, as well as ensuring that high-quality materials are published. Reviewers have a significant role in guiding researchers, improving their understanding of the topic and skills in both direct and indirect fashion. The success of a journal is partly due to the great team of reviewers, who are working to help the editor in accomplishing the journal’s mission, while providing highly relevant and impactful material to readers in the entire community, which will lead to better patient safety and quality in treatment.

APM: What reviewers have to bear in mind while reviewing papers?

Dr. Miscov: Reviewers should understand that they have a great responsibility over the research team, no matter how easy or challenging it is to transform their scientific findings into articles. The reviewers who impressed me and from whom I learned much through the reviewing process have guided with diligence, thorough comments in a clear language and with a realistic set of goals to accomplish. Another important aspect of the reviewers’ role is towards their editors, where a strong collaboration and duty towards them will ensure that all tasks are done in orderly fashion, and that all projects come to the finish line.

APM: Is it important for authors to disclose Conflict of Interest (COI)?

Dr. Miscov: The disclosure is important for both the journal and their readers to know, as it will give them a better understanding of the research team and their different constituents. While not having COIs is desirable, seen through the lenses of impartiality and result interpretation, readers must always keep an open approach also towards materials where authors have the above, as it can still show relevant knowledge and spark inspiration for further research. One must bear in mind that researchers will always do their duties to the best interest of the patient, regardless of having COIs or not.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

July, 2024

Ramkumar Govindaraj

Dr. Ramkumar Govindaraj is a consultant radiation oncologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide, Australia. His expertise lies in the comprehensive treatment of head and neck, brain, and lung cancers, including advanced techniques such as stereotactic radiosurgery for intracranial tumors and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy for lung cancers and oligometastatic cancers. He is particularly passionate about palliative radiotherapy and enhancing the quality of life for people with cancer and is the current chair of the Australian and New Zealand Palliative Radiation Oncology Group, affiliated with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists. His current major research endeavor involves utilizing realist methodology to investigate the effectiveness of electronic patient-reported outcomes in routine clinical cancer care, which forms the foundation for his doctoral research project with IMPACCT (Improving Palliative, Aged, and Chronic Care through Clinical Research and Translation) at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The peer-review process is the scientific community's collective responsibility to ensure the integrity and quality of the published scientific work,” says Dr. Govindaraj, who thinks that active participation of the scientific community in the peer-review process is essential for the progress and advancement of research in any field. Therefore, it is the responsibility of everyone involved in scholarly research to participate in peer review. This not only ensures the quality of scientific communication but also upholds the fairness of the publication process for all researchers in the field.

In Dr. Govindaraj’s opinion, the most important aspect of peer review is for the reviewer to clearly communicate to the editor the scientific quality of the paper and its contribution to the field. In his view, one of the most challenging aspects of the peer-review process is to evaluate the paper's merit and scientific rigor objectively without any bias. Additionally, it is vital for the peer-review report to differentiate between essential revisions necessary for publication and other non-critical suggestions. It is equally important to provide a clear and compelling scientific justification for the suggested essential revisions.

Dr. Govindaraj views peer review as a professional responsibility and critical for his own development as a researcher and an author. He indicates that he has benefited from excellent and constructive peer reviews that have significantly improved his scientific publications. “I'm dedicated to offering the same level of respectful and constructive peer review. Engaging in this process has not only enhanced my skills as a researcher, but also made me more critical about my own research and how I write and report my research,” adds he.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)

August, 2024

Andrew Foreman

Dr. Andrew Foreman is an Otolaryngologist Head and Neck Surgeon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia. He completed a PhD in 2011 through the University of Adelaide which won the University Doctoral Research medal as well as multiple awards at national and international meetings. He completed his surgical training in Adelaide before undertaking a head and neck surgical oncology and microvascular reconstruction fellowship at the University of Toronto. His primary clinical interests are in trans oral robotic surgery as well as microvascular free flap reconstruction of head and neck defects. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide and has research interests in clinical outcomes research, next generation magnetic tracers for sentinel lymph node biopsy and enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols. Dr. Foreman has published more than 55 peer-reviewed articles and 7 book chapters. He is on the Editorial Board of two international journals and regularly reviews for multiple peer-reviewed journals. He has a strong interest in teaching and training, serving on the Board of ENT training in Australia as well as being involved in the national ENT trainee selection process and being a member of the regional training committee in South Australia.

In Dr. Foreman’s opinion,peer review is essential in ensuring scientific rigour of manuscripts presented for publication and to enable the manuscript to be reviewed in the context of other similar literature and ensure there is an important clinical context for the manuscript and the question it poses.

“An objective review should be free of bias,” says Dr. Foreman. In peer review, he tries to focus his reviews on the quality of the methodology. He tries to determine if the methodology is appropriate to answer the research question that has been proposed and also whether or not the methodology is reproducible. He prefers to focus on these aspects of a review rather than being subjective about the author’s discussion or conclusion. He assesses the discussion based on its reference back to the results of the current work.

From a reviewer’s perspective, Dr. Foreman reckons that it is an important aspect of framing the research questions and subsequently preparing a manuscript. Following reporting guildlines ensures manuscripts consider all aspects of a research topic and assists in producing high-quality research that is original and free of bias. A critical step in research and manuscript preparation occurs in the research design phase. This ensures productive research is carried out to answer important research and clinical questions which ultimately increases the chances of a manuscript being published.

(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)