Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jan;25(1):111-116.
doi: 10.5811/westjem.61488.

A Collaborative Approach to Mentored Peer Reviews Sponsored by the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine

Jeffrey N Love  1 , Chris Merritt  2 , Jonathan S Ilgen  3 , Anne M Messman  4 , David P Way  5 , Douglas S Ander  6 , Wendy C Coates  7
Affiliations

A Collaborative Approach to Mentored Peer Reviews Sponsored by the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine

Jeffrey N Love et al. West J Emerg Med. 2024 Jan.

Abstract

Introduction: Historically, there have been no systematic programs for teaching peer review, leaving trainees to learn by trial and error. Recently, a number of publications have advocated for programs where experienced reviewers mentor trainees to more efficiently acquire this knowledge.

Objective: Our goal was to develop an introductory learning experience that intentionally fosters peer-review skills.

Methods: The Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine (CORD) offered education fellowship directors the opportunity to mentor their fellows by reviewing submitted manuscript(s) supplemented by educational material provided by their journal. Reviews were collaboratively created. The decision letter that was sent to manuscript authors was also sent to the mentees; it included all reviewers' and editor's comments, as feedback. In 2022, fellows received a post-experience survey regarding prior experiences and their perspectives of the mentored peer-review experience.

Results: From 2020-2022, participation grew from 14 to 30 education fellowships, providing 76 manuscript peer reviews. The 2022 survey-response rate of 87% (20/23) revealed that fellows were inexperienced in education scholarship prior to participation: 30% had authored an education paper, and 10% had performed peer review of an education manuscript. Overall, participants were enthusiastic about the program and anxious to participate the following year. In addition, participants identified a number of benefits of the mentored experience including improved understanding of the scholarship process; informing fellows' scholarly pursuits; improved conceptualization of concepts learned elsewhere in training; and learning through exposure to scholarship.

Conclusion: This program's early findings suggest that collaboration between academic societies and interested graduate medical education faculty has the potential to formalize the process of learning peer review, benefitting all involved stakeholders.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: By the WestJEM article submission agreement, all authors are required to disclose all affiliations, funding sources and financial or management relationships that could be perceived as potential sources of bias. No author has professional or financial relationships with any companies that are relevant to this study. There are no conflicts of interest or sources of funding to declare.

References

    1. Kronick DA. Peer review in 18th century scientific journalism. JAMA 1990;263(10):1321–2. - PubMed
    1. Smith R. Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals. J R Soc Med 2006;99:178–82. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dumenco L, Engle DL, Goodell K, et al. . Expanding group peer review: a proposal for medical education scholarship. Acad Med 2017;92(2):147–9. - PubMed
    1. Evans AT, McNutt RA, Fletcher SW, et al. . The characteristics of peer reviewers who produce good-quality reviews. J Gen Intern Med 1993;8(8):422–8. - PubMed
    1. Azer SA, Ramani S, Peterson R. Becoming a peer reviewer to medical education journals. Acad Med 2012;34:698–704. - PubMed