Appointment as a reviewer
Dr Kenneth Cutbush was appointed as a reviewer for the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (JSES) in 2015.
About the journal
JSES is the official publication of eight specialty organisations. It is a clinically oriented, peer-reviewed journal, international in scope, covering the medical, surgical and physical techniques used in the treatment of injury and disease of the upper extremity.
The subjects it covers include fractures and dislocations, rotator cuff disease, imaging, arthritis, arthroscopy, arthroplasty and rehabilitation.
What peer review involves
Reviewing is unpaid and largely invisible work. A reviewer reads submitted manuscripts before publication and assesses whether the methods support the conclusions, whether the statistics have been handled properly, and whether the paper adds anything to what is already known. Papers are frequently rejected or substantially revised as a result. It is the mechanism by which the literature that clinical practice relies on is filtered, and it depends on practising clinicians being willing to do it.
How a manuscript moves through review
A paper submitted to a journal is first looked at by an editor, who decides whether it is within scope and of sufficient interest to send out at all. A number of papers are returned at that point without being reviewed. Those that go forward are sent to reviewers chosen for their familiarity with the subject, commonly without the authors being told who they are. Each reviewer returns an assessment and a recommendation. The editor weighs those recommendations, which often disagree, and either rejects the paper, asks for revisions, or accepts it. Revisions are frequently extensive and may go round more than once, and a paper may be rejected after review has already been done. The whole cycle can take many months.
Why it matters beyond the journal
Guidelines, textbooks and the advice given in clinics are built on published studies, so the standard applied at review determines what eventually reaches patients. A reviewer who notices that a conclusion overstates the data, that a comparison group was not comparable, or that follow-up was too short to support a claim about durability, prevents that claim from entering the literature unchallenged. It is one of the reasons clinicians who treat patients are asked to review as well as to publish. Individual results vary.