Influencing through Writing and Editing for Family Medicine Journals

My Personal Journey to Make a Difference through Medical Journal Editing in the Field I Love (Family Medicine)

As I recently moved from the position of Editor to that of Editor Emeritus of my most recent editorial stint (with the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine), I mentioned to another editor that I thought about writing about being an Editor of medical journals. He encouraged me to do so.

My goal in writing this commentary is to stimulate others to either become editors or to help editors make journals the best they can be, such as through writing and submitting manuscripts and doing reviews of proposed articles. Authorship, peer-review, editorial board membership, and editorship all can create long-lasting changes in healthcare.

In addition to being an author, volunteering to be a reviewer provides additional in-depth perspectives. Clinicians and researchers need to think, evaluate, develop new ideas, and forever pursue how to improve health care. There is no better way to attain these skills than by doing your own writing and rewriting (with and without others) and learning from the critiques that arise through both the research and review processes. Another method is to be a manuscript reviewer. Doing so can help improve your own care of patients, assist in the process of health care more broadly, and support a faculty promotion that enhances your ability to educate others.

The next layer is to become an editor. Are Medical Editors a special breed? Is it luck versus talent? Medical editors probably bring a combination of inherent strengths, such as a willingness to say yes to opportunities and a desire to create works with a potential positive impact for people. Oh, and being intent on deadlines - a must in the journal world. (Sorry authors, an editor sometimes must keep pushing…). Further, a person who wishes to be an editor should author and review papers, volunteer for pertinent work, and not overreact - but learn from - criticism!

How did I personally become an Editor of a major national family medicine journal? Serendipity plus desire led to many of my work opportunities and editorships. Many of my former positions required writing and editor skills, some provided national visibility, and all gave me invaluable experiences for a journal editorship. Further, I innately live by either personally or externally determined deadlines, and deadlines determine journal success.

Perhaps surprisingly, my experience as an editor began inauspiciously with a failed attempt to start a family medicine research journal when I was a family medicine resident. There were few journals that would accept family medicine research. I had done research in medical school and during residency (rare for non-MD/PhD students in those days), and thought I should attempt to publish my results, but found the options to do so were meager.

That new journal (started with co-inspirator Dr. Edward Shahady, the Department Chair of Family Practice at the University of North Carolina at that time) quickly died due to lack of funding – in those days publishing required “hard” copy (paper) rather than electronic manuscripts which cost (unavailable) money in 1978-79, well before the internet explosion of on-line journals (which still require funding, but somewhat less funding…).

There were other experiences that both inspired my passion and played to my strengths to do editorial work. Specifically, many of the post-residency jobs I took involved writing or overseeing the writing of others. They also gave me national visibility. My first position was in the Public Health Service working in the Division of Medicine of the Health Resources Administration. That first job included writing grant reviews and official publications as well as interaction with others inside and outside of the Federal Government, such as academicians, policy advisory boards, accreditation agencies, and Congress. I wrote many reports on site visits to residency programs and some testimony for Congress. I supervised other Federal employees writing significant official reports, i.e., a version of editing!

The challenges of my day job duties at HRA also meant I felt I needed to get more education to do it well, and thus I concurrently pursued a Master of Public Administration degree. This choice again required much writing and presenting (one major paper per course). I published a version of some of the papers I wrote for my masters’ degree. This fulfills my standard “double-duty” principle in my life – doing something that accomplishes more than one goal simultaneously!

However, the ability to find the time to see patients while working for the Federal Government was inadequate. Thus, I became faculty at a series of academic institutions, concurrently fulfilling my needs to see patients and to write and publish.

One driver for my success over the years as a journal editor was an inability – the inability to let papers linger in my inbox for more than a day or two – there are must-meet deadlines, I hate leaving tasks undone (or I will awake at night thinking about them), potential authors (or co-authors) want answers, and journals want good papers for their readers as soon as possible.

Another driver is my fascination with what clinicians could learn from each manuscript. I find that I still cannot wait to figure out how important and good a submission is! I continue to learn from reviewing articles and have voluntarily completed peer reviews for 19 different publications over my career. This diverse reviewer experience provides insights into the differences between journals and provides ideas on how to make our family medicine journals better.

Similarly, I recommend faculty and aspiring faculty do article reviews – not just to help them, but to help the field of family medicine.

As I have stepped aside from being the Editor to becoming Editor Emeritus with the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, I want to say ‘thank-you’ to the many people who have afforded me opportunities, and to my family for accepting the implications inherent in those opportunities. The list of supportive people is far too long for this paper, and I hopefully have expressed my thanks previously, and will into the future.

Many thanks must also go to all of those who contribute to our family medicine journals – the authors, the researchers, their supporters, the readers, the peer reviewers, the funders of journals and research. My hopes and pleas are that more individuals will develop and disseminate information that improves the practice of family medicine and advantages the large population we serve. Do the research. Find practice learnings that help others. Volunteer as reviewers (or for editorial boards or editorships) and provide feedback to our journals. Promote our journals to residents and students. Do great work and publish it in family medicine journals!

Go, Family Medicine!! A key to health in the U.S.A.!