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From the Editor |
Index terms: Editorial • Radiology (journal)
As we begin another calendar year of the Journal, I am enthusiastic about the many features that will be available in Radiology. These features are in concert with our commitment that Radiology remain a vibrant journal for which the constant is ongoing change—change that responds to the needs of the Journal’s authors, reviewers, and readers.
Statisticians to Review Manuscripts
I am most enthusiastic that the RSNA Board of Directors has approved review by statisticians of all manuscripts that have statistical content and that will be published in Radiology. Until now, we have had such review of selected manuscripts only, a process of which several of our authors and reviewers have been aware. Beginning in January 2001, all accepted manuscripts with statistical content will also undergo review by a statistician. As Editor, I look upon this approval action by the RSNA Board as further evidence that the RSNA encourages advances in our specialty and continually improves its service to its members—in this case, authors, peer reviewers, and readers.
As a service to authors, the review of statistical content will not be an impediment in the peer review process, nor will it be an impediment to publication. Instead, statisticians will provide an assessment of the statistical content and provide a series of comments for revisions, just as is now the case for comments otherwise provided by our peer reviewers. The statisticians will be blinded to the authors’ identities, as is the case for our other peer reviewers.
As an educational activity for our peer reviewers, the comments of the statisticians will be mailed to the peer reviewers along with the Editor’s decision letter and the comments from other peer reviewers.
As a learning experience for our readers, the statistician’s input into the final published manuscript will enable readers to become more familiar with the importance of appropriate statistical analysis of data. The authors of a recently published article (1) noted that "Claims of ‘difference’ or ‘similarity’ are often made not by thoughtful examination of the data but by tests of statistical significance that are often misapplied or accompanied by inadequate sample sizes." As a still further service to the readers of the Journal, a statistician will, from time to time, provide a brief commentary at the end of an article to emphasize an important facet of the statistical tests used in the data analysis. I believe that this change in our manuscript review process will be another milestone to mark the quality for which Radiology is respected and of which our authors can be proud.
Continuing Medical Education Category 1 Credit for Reviewers and Authors
We are delighted to announce that Radiology reviewers are now able to obtain category 1 credit for reviewing manuscripts, which further emphasizes the importance of the academic activity of reviewing. It goes without saying that the quality of a scientific journal is, in a major way, dependent on the quality of its reviewers, and we are fortunate that Radiology has access to numerous outstanding reviewers. As an Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education accredited provider, the RSNA now offers reviewers of manuscripts for potential publication in its peer-reviewed journals the opportunity to earn category 1 credit qualifying for the American Medical Association (AMA) Physician’s Recognition Award. The RSNA Board approved such a program on June 8, 2000. With each manuscript, reviewers will also receive a letter and a form listing the learning objectives and detailing the process for obtaining category 1 credit. Reviewers will receive 2 hours of category 1 credit for each manuscript reviewed, with a maximum of 10 hours of such credit per year. Moreover, reviewers may obtain credit retroactively for the year 2000 for manuscripts reviewed subsequent to June 8, 2000.
The AMA Council on Medical Education has approved that authors of an article—that is, those making major contributions to the article—are eligible for 10 category 1 credits for each article, one article per year, provided the article is published in a peer-reviewed journal included in Index Medicus. These category 1 credits also qualify for the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award.
Articles by Radiology Manuscript Editors
An article published in the Journal is the final product of several iterations of the original submission, including editing by our manuscript editors. The manuscript editor spends several hours ensuring that the author’s manuscript both follows the style established for Radiology and conveys the author’s message as unambiguously as possible. As an author myself, in the past I have reacted to the edited versions of my manuscripts in a manner undoubtedly similar to that of many of our current authors—namely, initial concern with the changes but subsequent realization that the edited version more clearly conveyed the message. Thus, I have asked our manuscript editors to write the series of articles found in this issue of Radiology in the section Special Reports. These articles will help our authors understand why many of the changes are made in their manuscripts. The articles focus on the major topical items with which our manuscript editors deal on a daily basis. Moreover, our author survey, conducted a few years ago, revealed that authors wished to have more access to the whys and wherefores of manuscript editing. The series of articles published in this issue of Radiology are a response to that request. I urge our authors to read the articles because they provide interesting and important information. The series, introduced by Diane Berneath Lang, includes information regarding grammar and punctuation (written by Kimberly L. Franks and Virginia Boyce Hill); nomenclature and abbreviations (by Phyllis J. Skryd); numbers, statistics, and tabular data (by John J. Humpal); and illustrations and captions and supplementary material for the online version of Radiology (by Rosemary K. Young).
Reflections
In the year 2000, we featured the special series Reflections—our celebration of the past as we looked toward the future (the new millennium). The articles published in this series focused on specific specialty areas, were written by noted individuals, and had a three-fold intent: discussion of how the specialty was practiced in the past, demonstration of how that practice has changed to the now current practice, and illustration of what the authors believed to be some of the more major advances that have occurred in the specialty area. Authors provided their personal perspectives as well, emphasizing the components of the three-fold intent to a greater or lesser degree, as they deemed appropriate. We have received many positive comments about this series, and I have, therefore, decided to continue Reflections intermittently in 2001 until those manuscripts that have been prepared or are being prepared have been published. We trust our readers will find the articles that will be published in 2001 to be both as interesting and as revealing of the contrast between former and current practice as those published in the year 2000.
New Journal Section
A term gaining continued recognition in the medical literature is evidence-based medicine. As noted by Guyatt et al (2), evidence-based medicine "is about solving clinical problems." Moreover, Guyatt et al have stated that evidence-based medicine "acknowledges that intuition, unsystematic clinical experience, and pathophysiologic rationale are insufficient grounds for clinical decision-making, and stresses the examination of evidence from clinical research." RSNA Board Liaison for Education Brian Lentle, MD, has noted that evidence-based medicine "principles teach how to use specific criteria to evaluate clinical trials and how to search medical databases for information that can be used to solve real-world medical problems" (3).
Over the past few years, the Journal has been receiving more submissions of manuscripts containing information related to the concept of evidence-based medicine. Accordingly, we have established a new section of the Journal where articles related to the practice of evidence-based medicine (eg, meta-analyses, outcome studies) will be published. I have chosen the title "Evidence-Based Practice" to encompass not only diagnostic imaging but also interventional radiology and radiation oncology.
Radiology Online
The online version of Radiology has undergone continued change in the past year. It offers readers many features that are available electronically but not in the printed version of the Journal. In the past year, we have approved for publication in the online journal supplemental materials such as additional images, studies demonstrating motion, and additional data. I urge authors, reviewers, and readers to familiarize themselves with Radiology Online so as to benefit from both its current advantages and those additional ones that will be introduced in the future. Our intent is to establish Radiology Online as a journal that offers flexibility in the way one can learn from the scientific material included therein. Please note that as of December 2000, controlled access for Radiology Online was implemented.
Authorship
In the May 2000 issue of Radiology, we published a letter to the Editor by Probyn and Asch (4) regarding authorship. In addition to making a number of interesting points, the authors commended us for changing our guidelines and for publishing the contributions made by each author. As they stated, "These contributions give the reader a sense of the extent of work done by individual authors and promote quality and high standards in Radiology articles." To the best of my knowledge, at the time of writing this editorial, Radiology is the only imaging journal that lists author contributions and is one of at least six biomedical journals currently doing so (5). In my response (6) to the letter to the Editor, I emphasized my belief that authorship "should be reserved for those who merit it by virtue of their contributions to a study."
I also included in my response (6) a discussion of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria, which are part of the uniform requirements for manuscripts that are submitted to biomedical journals (7). In short, an author should have made substantial contributions in three areas: (a) "conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data", (b) "drafting of the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content", and (c) "final approval of the version to be published" (7). I look forward to eventually reaching the point when all individuals listed as authors in Radiology will have met these ICMJE criteria for authorship. However, I acknowledge that a period of understanding and education will be required. To that end, our Publication Information for Authors guidelines includes a section on author contributions and authorship. In addition, the Manuscript Categorization Terms form, where authors list their individual contributions, identifies those contributions that are part of the ICMJE criteria for authorship.
The letter by Probyn and Asch and my response sparked two additional letters, one by Morillo (8) and another by Athanasoulis (9), both published in the November 2000 issue of Radiology. I urge our authors to read these two letters and my responses (10,11), because they further expand on concepts related to authorship. In addition, I ask potential authors of a manuscript to familiarize themselves with the ICMJE criteria for authorship, to ensure that they will appropriately participate in the research and thus meet these criteria. Let us take pride in authorship! Let individuals listing themselves as authors do so when they "have actually made the contributions that entitle them to the distinction of author" (6).
REFERENCES
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  A. V. Proto Radiology 2007 Farewell Radiology, December 1, 2007; 245(3): 619 - 621. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2007: Evaluating and Processing Your Manuscript for Publication Radiology, July 1, 2007; 244(1): 3 - 6. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2006: More Change Radiology, January 1, 2006; 238(1): 3 - 5. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2005--What's Happening? Radiology, January 1, 2005; 234(1): 5 - 7. [Full Text] [PDF]
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K. E. Applegate and P. E. Crewson Statistical Literacy Radiology, March 1, 2004; 230(3): 613 - 614. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2004--New Directions Radiology, January 1, 2004; 230(1): 3 - 5. [Full Text] [PDF]
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J. C. Pezzullo and A. M. Lewicki Schatzki Ring, Statistically Reexamined Radiology, September 1, 2003; 228(3): 609 - 613. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2003--The Constancy of Change Radiology, January 1, 2003; 226(1): 1 - 4. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2002—Statistical Concepts Series Radiology, November 1, 2002; 225(2): 317 - 317. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2002—Continued Progress Radiology, January 1, 2002; 222(1): 1 - 2. [Full Text] [PDF]
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A. V. Proto Radiology 2001—Continuous Publishing Radiology, November 1, 2001; 221(2): 281 - 281. [Full Text] [PDF]
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