Publications by authors named "Michael Callaham"
Objective: Although current ethical standards mandate conflict of interest (COI) disclosure by authors of peer-reviewed publications, it is unknown whether disclosure affects a manuscript's fate. Our objective was to identify associations between author COI disclosure and editorial decision to publish.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional observational study of editorial decisions for original research and brief research report manuscripts submitted to between June 2014 and January 2018 using data from the journal's editorial decision software and data from a prior study that characterized author COI for the same manuscripts.
Objective: To assess the effect of disclosing authors' conflict of interest declarations to peer reviewers at a medical journal.
Design: Randomized controlled trial.
Setting: Manuscript review process at the PARTICIPANTS: Reviewers (n=838) who reviewed manuscripts submitted between 2 June 2014 and 23 January 2018 inclusive (n=1480 manuscripts).
Background: Open Payments is a United States federal program mandating reporting of medical industry payments to physicians, increasing transparency of physician conflicts of interest (COI). Study objectives were to assess industry payments to physician-editors, and to compare their financial COI rate to all physicians within the specialty.
Methods And Findings: We performed a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data, reviewing Open Payments from August 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016.
Study Objective: We define a minimally important difference for the Likert-type scores frequently used in scientific peer review (similar to existing minimally important differences for scores in clinical medicine). The magnitude of score change required to change editorial decisions has not been studied, to our knowledge.
Methods: Experienced editors at a journal in the top 6% by impact factor were asked how large a change of rating in "overall desirability for publication" was required to trigger a change in their initial decision on an article.
Background: Prior efforts to train medical journal peer reviewers have not improved subsequent review quality, although such interventions were general and brief. We hypothesized that a manuscript-specific and more extended intervention pairing new reviewers with high-quality senior reviewers as mentors would improve subsequent review quality.
Methods: Over a four-year period we randomly assigned all new reviewers for Annals of Emergency Medicine to receive our standard written informational materials alone, or these materials plus a new mentoring intervention.
Background: Disclosure of financial conflicts of interest (COI) is intended to help reviewers assess the impact of potential bias on the validity of research results; however, there have been no empiric assessments of how reviewers understand and use disclosures in article evaluation. We investigate reviewers' perceptions of potential bias introduced by particular author disclosures, and whether reviewer characteristics are associated with a greater likelihood of perceiving bias.
Methodology/principal Findings: Of the 911 active reviewers from the Annals of Emergency Medicine, 410 were randomly selected and invited to complete our web-based, 3-part survey.
Objective: To characterize medical editors by determining their demographics, training, potential sources of conflict of interest (COI), and familiarity with ethical standards.
Study Design And Setting: We selected editors of clinical medical journals with the highest annual citation rates. One hundred eighty-three editors were electronically surveyed (response rate, 52%) on demographics and experiences with editorial training, publication ethics, industry, and scientific publication organizations.
Annals of Emergency Medicine established the Resident Editorial Fellow program for senior residents in 1998. As of 2009, 14 residents had completed the 1-year program. We survey the literature on training of medical editors, describe the structure of the fellowship, and present the results of a survey of all past participants, documenting their subsequent professional positions and the perceived influence of the fellowship on their careers.
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