Peer Review Policy

Peer Review Policy

The Journal of Education and Teaching in Emergency Medicine adheres to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publications.1 All manuscripts submitted to JETem undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process, whereas the authors and reviewers are blinded from each other’s names or affiliations. Editors are not to disclose the confidentiality of reviewers or authors. Details of the review are not revealed to the authors until review is complete and an official decision on the manuscript is made. Editors, editorial staff and reviewers are not to discuss publicly any authors’ works until publication. Manuscripts sent for review are privileged information and are the sole property of the authors’ until publication, at which time the manuscript is under the creative common license.

Editors assign 2-4 reviewers to whom the identities of the authors remain anonymous. Reviewers provide thorough feedback on the assigned article and make recommendations to the editors regarding the following:

  • Accuracy of the content
  • Critique of the methodology
  • The impact and strength of submission
  • Reproducibility of the module
  • Strengths of the manuscript
  • Significant limitations that need to be addressed
  • Comments on the clarify, brevity and grammar

Once at least two reviews have been completed, the article is forwarded to section editors who make recommendations to the editors regarding to following:

  • Accuracy of the content
  • Critique of the methodology
  • The impact and strength of submission
  • Reproducibility of the module
  • Strengths of the manuscript
  • Significant limitations that need to be addressed
  • Comments on the clarify, brevity and grammar

Senior Associate Editors will register the final decision. The reviewer’s identity will remain confidential throughout the peer review process.

  1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication. October 2007. Available at http://www.icmje.org/index.html.

 

 Peer Review Policy for Interested Reviewers

All interested reviewers must meet the requirements for the JETem:

  • The interested reviewer must be board certified, or eligible, in emergency medicine.
  • The interested reviewer must be academically affiliated with an emergency medicine residency program.
  • The interested reviewer must have at least 1 original research publication listed on his or her CV. All articles pending a final decision must be included.
  • A letter of interest and most recent CV must be emailed to Dr. Shannon Toohey at stoohey@uci.edu. The CV will be kept on file at the JETem office.
  • The reviewer is expected to review 2 to 5 reviews per calendar year.
  • The reviewer must complete the assigned review within 14 days of request. If the reviewer is unable to complete the review within 14 days, the reviewer must notify the Editorial Director at jetemonline@gmail.com.
  • Although not required, it is highly recommended that all interested reviewers complete the Peer Review Training Module created by Annals of Emergency Medicine that can be found here.

All interested reviewers acknowledge:

  • The authors remain confidential and blinded during the review process.
  • The reviewer may not disclose any details of the review until after an official decision has been made.
  • Reviewer comments and critiques are not published with the manuscript.

 

Handling Internal Submissions

The Journal of Education and Teaching in Emergency Medicine is currently the only open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes educational content for emergency medicine educators. As such, there are no other publication avenues for many of our editors and editorial board members, who are experts in education. Thus, we do occasionally receive submissions from editors, editorial board members, and authors from our own institutions. These submissions are immediately blinded by our editorial director and processed in the same manor as any other submission we receive. The original manuscript and additional documents are blinded for review and forwarded to our peer-reviewers until at least 2 separate reviews are received. Then, it is assessed by a JETem section editor and a final decision is made by a senior associate editor. Throughout this process none of those reviewing the manuscript are authors of the submission nor are they aware of author identification information. Our editorial director ensures that no manuscript authors are involved at any point in review of the submission in order to maintain that the manuscript is solely judged based on its educational merit and quality of writing.