Comment: Mutual Responsibilities to Nurture the Journal

Mutual Responsibilities to Nurture the Journal

Dear Sir,

I read with great interest your editorial titled “Mutual Responsibilities to Nurture the Journal” published in Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery (IJPS) that provides an excellent insight as to what we as members of Association of Plastic Surgeons of India, authors, teachers, and institutions can do to nurture the journal.[1] However, I would like to suggest an element of “mutual nurturing” that could be added to it. That element pertains to the role we as reviewers can play for nurturing the journal. As someone who has been on both ends of the table of being an author and a reviewer over the past 7 to 8 years, my humble suggestions are listed below.

While reviewing for IJPS is purely honorary, we must come forward to sign up as reviewers for the journal in large numbers as our duty toward it. This would provide the editorial team with a robust pool of reviewers to assess the increasing number of articles that IJPS that is expected to see as its yearly issues increase. As reviewers, we can also contribute by strictly respecting the timelines allowed by the editorial team.

While reviewing, we must take it as an imperative duty to be unbiased toward articles even if they challenge or are contrary to our personal beliefs/practices, and if they are strongly backed by science, data, and logic. Science must be the first priority, language second. We may take a leaf out of Prof. Erich Mühe's life while reviewing. He was ridiculed by his own community as “small brain-small incision” surgeon for doing the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy in 1985. Fast forward to today and laparoscopy is indispensable not just in gallstone management but most abdominal surgeries. It may also interest readers to know that Mühe's article on the technique was rejected by the American Journal of Surgery due to his poor English! Our aim while reviewing should be not to miss on work of any Mühe among us. Revision/rejection of articles should be preferably backed by a couple of references. The tone of words while being professional must be polite in all circumstances (acceptance/revision/or rejection) to keep the authors motivated to work on their current/future manuscripts. Personal or humiliating remarks must be avoided at all cost as they break spirit of young budding authors and could discourage them from submitting to the journal much to the loss of the journal. To nurture the journal, it is essential that the “triad” of editorial team, authors, and the reviewers keep “advancement of plastic surgery” as their foremost goal.

Long live IJPS!

Conflict of Interest

None declared.

• Reference

• 1 Kadam D. Mutual responsibilities to nurture the Journal. Indian J Plast Surg 2023; 56 (01) 1-2

Publication History

Article published online:
03 October 2023