In 2024, JOMA 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
Samuel A Schechtman, University of Michigan, USA
February, 2024
Kelly A Daly, New York University, USA
January, 2024
Samuel A Schechtman
Dr. Samuel Schechtman is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan Medical School. He also serves as the Director of Head and Neck Anesthesiology and Airway Management. He is the Immediate Past President for the Society for Head and Neck Anesthesia (SHANA). Clinically, Dr. Schechtman has interest in airway risk assessment and intraoperative airway management for patients with complex head and neck pathologies. His current research interests include predictors of challenging airway management, airway management for patients with a prior history of a "challenging airway", perioperative approaches to management of complex head and neck pathologies, institutional airway management safety, management of the cannot-ventilate and cannot-oxygenate scenario, and optimizing difficult airway documentation utilizing the electronic health record. He has led institutional and international airway workshops and has presented internationally on airway management and approaches to head and neck anesthesia. Connect with him on Twitter (X) @SamSchechtman.
Throughout Dr. Schechtman’s clinical and educational experiences, he has been fortunate to have received strong and insightful guidance from mentors. As both a reviewer and researcher, he views constructive review as sharing insight and experience for others to optimize and clarify the findings and message that their work is trying to send to the scientific community. He believes it is also important to ensure the highest standards of scientific integrity, methodology, and patient safety to ensure that the findings and conclusions being drawn are valid for changes in the future.
Peer review is vital for medical research, according to Dr. Schechtman, as the work being presented can guide future practice patterns and optimize safety for patient care. Therefore, peer review needs to be regarded and held to the highest standards. In his view, peer review ensures that methods and findings are conducted safely and methodologically to support findings and draw conclusions. Peer review also is significant in ensuring that findings and conclusions are supported by results as extrapolation of data can lead to changes in practice that may not have scientific data to support them. And finally, peer review ensures that manuscripts being published include considerations of the most recent findings, results, and practices within the medical literature to optimize patient safety and outcomes.
“As a head and neck anesthesiologist, I am honored to have the opportunity to serve as a peer reviewer for JOMA. Head and neck surgery and perioperative care continue to advance at a rapid rate and ensuring that others recognize practice patterns to optimize safety remains vital. Through JOMA and the peer-review process, advances in practice patterns in perioperative care for patients presenting with head and neck pathologies can be shared throughout the world,” says Dr. Schechtman.
(By Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
February, 2024
Kelly A Daly
Dr. Kelly Daly, M.S., Ph.D., is a research scientist at the Family Translational Research Group and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the New York University College of Dentistry. She is a clinical psychologist whose research has two major foci. She studies the neurobiological and socioemotional risk factors for, and impacts of, trauma exposure across the lifespan. She also does research in implementation science—including the dissemination of evidence-based interventions and best practice knowledge to improve public health. Related to the latter focus, Dr. Daly is currently contributing to research on dental anxiety assessment and intervention. She also teaches undergraduate dental courses on clinical and professional assessment and the science of behavior change, in addition to mentoring dental students in research methods. Learn more about her here.
JOMA: Why do we need peer review? What is so important about it?
Dr. Daly: Peer review is foundational to scientific progress. As a researcher, it is hard not to be myopic sometimes—we are so invested in every element of our current study or theory that we can lose sight of the larger context in which our project is embedded. Having independent scholars check our work, point out weaknesses and flaws, and challenge our thinking safeguards our science and ensures not only the best possible products but also the continued evolution of our ideas. Others with related but distinct expertise can offer alternate viewpoints, propose factors and relationships that may not have occurred to us, and suggest other ways to test our research questions.
JOMA: Biases are inevitable in peer review. How do you minimize any potential biases during review?
Dr. Daly: When it comes to peer review, I work to set my ideas and beliefs aside and approach each manuscript analytically. As a reviewer, it is my job to help the authors write the strongest possible paper, regardless of my personal feelings about the topic. There are several questions implicitly guiding my reading and commentary. How convincing is this argument to me as a reader? How well-supported is this premise? Are there overt gaps in the literature review and rationale? Is there counterevidence not being considered? Do these research methods appropriately test the question posed by the authors? What does the data analysis tell me? Does this manuscript succeed in providing the information/ answering the question intended? Does the paper flow logically from one point to the next, creating a coherent whole? What recommendations can I make to help the authors bolster their argument, provide a more robust test of their hypotheses, improve coherence, or more thoroughly review the topic?
As researchers, I think we need to confront our own biases constantly. It’s essential to the job and requires regular practice. For example, as scientists, we need to be agnostic about the outcomes of our experiments. Regardless of how much we want something to work out a certain way, we need to maintain an objective curiosity and openness to whatever happens. This can be particularly challenging sometimes—take for example a trial testing the efficacy of an intervention you developed. But it is the only way we really make progress. Every result—no matter how personally disappointing or antithetical to our beliefs—moves us forward.
JOMA: Would you like to say a few words to encourage other reviewers who have been devoting themselves to advancing scientific progress behind the scene?
Dr. Daly: I am extremely grateful to everyone who engages in peer review. Again, I truly believe it is the foundation of our science. Academic publishing—moreover academic progress— would cease without it. Science is a collaborative endeavor, and I feel that each one of us has a responsibility to contribute our expertise and perspective to each other— to challenge, augment, and improve the work of others, just as we rely on others to improve our work.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
