In 2024, VATS 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.
February, 2024
Dorian Rojas, University of Rennes Hospital Center, France
April, 2024
Chiara Catelli, University Hospital of Siena, Italy
July, 2024
Tai Hato, Saitama Medical University, Japan
February, 2024
Dorian Rojas
Dr. Dorian Rojas is a thoracic and vascular surgeon at the University of Rennes Hospital Center, France. He earned his degree from Rennes University, following his residency in thoracic cardiovascular surgery under the guidance of his mentor Prof. Richard De Latour. Additionally, he serves as a PhD student, focusing on the influence of artificial intelligence in surgery, specifically in the modeling of anatomic lung structures and their impact on surgical procedures and preoperative planning. His affiliations include membership in the French Society of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (SFCTCV) and the European Society of Thoracic Surgery (ESTS). Furthermore, his research interests extend to sublobar resection, subxiphoid anatomic lung resection, robot-assisted surgery, and enhancing the ERAS pathway.
In Dr. Rojas’s opinion, the current peer-review system has certain limitations: 1) The subjectivity and bias inherent in peer review can lead to decisions that are not objective, as the process is influenced by the reviewers’ personal biases. 2) The quality and expertise of reviewers and editors can vary greatly between journals, with no universal standards for measuring their competence. 3) The lack of transparency and accountability in the peer-review process can affect the fairness and reliability of the system, as reviewers are often anonymous and not held accountable for their evaluations. He points out that several measures may be implemented to enhance the peer-review system. On one hand, standardization of procedures could be carried out, such as establishing a consensus on a core set of standards for what constitutes peer review, which could mitigate the variability in quality. On the other hand, he thinks that provision of training and rewards might also help improve the current system. For example, offering formal training to reviewers and incentives for delivering high-quality reviews could bolster the overall process.
Dr. Rojas indicates that when appraising papers, reviewers should consider several essential factors to guarantee a comprehensive and impartial examination: 1) relevance and significance: determine whether the research query is pertinent and significant to the discipline; 2) originality: assess the uniqueness of the topic and the novelty it brings to the subject area; 3) clarity and writing quality: evaluate the paper's readability, coherence, and grammatical accuracy; and 4) reliability of data and arguments: verify whether the conclusions align with the data and arguments presented consistently.
“All reviews were interesting, and reviewing manuscripts is an effective method for staying current with the latest scientific developments and advancements. Furthermore, the process of reviewing manuscripts can enhance my ability to think critically and improve my writing skills, both of which are invaluable assets for my own research and publications,” says Dr. Rojas.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
April, 2024
Chiara Catelli
Chiara Catelli, M.D., is a thoracic surgeon at the University Hospital of Siena, Italy, where she is involved in a Lung Transplant program. After obtaining her degree from the Faculty of Medicine and in Pisa, Italy, she completed her residency in thoracic surgery at the Thoracic Surgery Unit of the University of Padua, Italy (Director: Prof. Federico Rea). Her affiliations include membership in the Italian Society of Thoracic Surgery (SICT) and the Italian Society of Organ Transplants (SITO). Currently, her main areas of interest and research are mainly lung transplantation and organ reconditioning, and minimally invasive thoracic surgery (VATS and robot-assisted). She is currently working on the role of robot-assisted surgery within minimally invasive pulmonary, thymic and diaphragmatic surgery. She is also working on the lung reperfusion machines.
Dr. Catelli thinks that during peer review, authors must remain objective and provide useful comments in order to improve the quality of the proposed article. It would be necessary to focus more on the methodology of the study rather than the results obtained, as it is the rigorous method of the study that provides reliable results. In her opinion, to be objective, a review must focus on the study method. The reviewer's task is precisely to verify the accuracy, relevance and preparation of the study. Focusing on the method helps to be objective. It is also essential to rely on pre-existing literature relating to the study to avoid basing the review simply on one's own knowledge about the topic.
“Trying your hand at being a reviewer is essential to increase your knowledge in the area of interest, to keep up to date on the research currently underway, and above all to develop a critical eye in the scientific field,” says Dr. Catelli.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
July, 2024
Tai Hato
Tai Hato, MD, PhD, serves at the Department of Saitama Medical Centre, Saitama Medical University, Japan, which is renowned for tracheal/bronchial reconstruction surgery in Japan. He graduated and finished his residency program at the Department of Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine in 2008. He received his PhD thesis focusing on the angiogenic regulations of lung development in 2010. He became interested in pathological tumor angiogenesis and spent three years at the Edwin L. Steele laboratory at Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital. After returning to Japan, Dr. Hato has been practicing thoracic surgery at his current position in Saitama, Japan, focusing mainly on minimally invasive robotic surgery. His recent research projects are 1) developing preoperative simulation models by 3D printing of organs using thermoplastic elastomers, 2) non-technical surgical skills in robotic thoracic surgery, and 3) molecular biology of tumor endothelial cell senescence. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Speaking of the limitations of the existing peer-review system, Dr. Hato indicates that the lack of quality assurance of peer reviewers is often an issue. Many reviewers consider peer review to be critic. In fact, when reviewers look at the comments on papers they have submitted, or the comments of other reviewers who have reviewed the same paper, few reviewers write comments that give the impression of legitimacy of the content or an intention to improve the quality of the paper. Even if they decide to reject a paper, they should provide a statement of why they reached that decision. Peer review is similar to writing a paper in some ways, but it is also a different skill in terms of objectivity, and it requires experience and education. He thinks it would be a good idea to train high-quality peer reviewers, and have experienced and less experienced reviewers review the same papers to help each other improve their skills. Finally, they should make full use of reviewer talent databases such as Publons. Another limitation, in his opinion, is that peer review is conducted on a voluntary basis. It will be difficult to provide financial rewards in order to prevent further increases in paper submission fees. On the other hand, it is important to recognize excellent reviewers and create opportunities to attract attention to peer reviewers, as VATS does. Furthermore, it is important for the scientific community as a whole to create a system that incorporates peer review into individuals' achievements and helps them develop career paths.
When reviewing papers based on descriptive statistics, Dr. Hato pays particular attention to the appropriateness of the control settings. In retrospective studies, he often encounters papers where cohorts are selected in a cherry-picking style. Similarly, he pays close attention to how missing valuesare handled. A recent and frequent problem of bias is the misuse of propensity score matching analysis. It is a misuse of the method to perform retrospective analysis using propensity score matching on mere background factors that are not interventions. A very common mistake is relying solely on p-values in significance tests. Evaluating significance tests solely on p-values when there is not a sufficient sample size is often misused. He reckons that recently there has been an increase in papers using Bayesian statistics and machine learning rather than descriptive statistics. These statistical methods have fundamentally different approaches and since he has limited experience with them, he always asks the editorial staff to have a statistician evaluate the validity of the papers when reviewing them.
“Currently, peer review is unpaid, and you will not receive any praise for doing it. Nevertheless, researchers undertake peer review because they have a strong desire to move science forward in the right direction. I empathize with such aspirations. Let's continue to work hard together so that more high-quality research can be produced in the world,” says Dr. Hato.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
