On Being the Editor in Chief of the Journal CHEST: 14 Memorable Years

Abstract

On July 1, 2005, my tenure as Editor in Chief of CHEST began; on June 30, 2019, it will end. As I reflect on the 14 years, they have been filled with memories, the most memorable of which I have chosen to share in this commentary. The memory topping the list is how grateful I have been for having had the opportunity and honor to be the Editor in Chief of CHEST. It has allowed me, with our team, to participate in advancing the fields of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, and antithrombotic therapy, by publishing high-quality and novel information and personally being in a position to keep up with what is known or changing in our fields. My position also enabled me to problem-solve, an activity that I have always loved and was one of the reasons why I wanted to become a physician in the first place. I am also grateful for having had the opportunity to work on a long-standing basis with a wonderful group of interprofessionals who have made up the CHEST journal team. To the following individuals, I offer a heartfelt thanks: Assistant Editor Cynthia French; Deputy Editor John Heffner; Senior Vice President for Marketing Communications and Publishing Nicki Augustyn; Managing Editors Jean Rice (now retired) and Lisbeth Maxwell; Senior Editorial Coordinators Laura Lipsey and Barbara Anderson; Manager of Editorial Resources Pamela Goorsky; Operations Coordinator for Publishing and Digital Content Carla Miller; former Manager of Subscriptions and Advertising Patricia Micek; Publisher Pamela Poppalardo and her Elsevier team; our past and present advertising representatives at the Walchli Tauber Group, American Medical Communications, and Elsevier who helped grow the financial footprint of the journal to keep step with our editorial ambitions; past Executive Vice Presidents and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the CHEST organization—Alvin Lever and Stephen Welch (who rose through the ranks from Managing Editor to Director of Publications to Senior Vice President of Publications and Digital Content and Publisher to CEO); current Executive Vice President/CEO Robert Musacchio; our Associate Editors and Editorial Board members, Section Editors, International Edition Editors, and their Editorial Boards; and our reviewers, who have played a huge role in helping us select the highest quality and novel manuscripts for publication. The memories that I now share in this compendium speak to the diversity of the interesting experiences of being an Editor in Chief. As soon as I was selected to become the seventh Editor in Chief of the journal,1Irwin R.S. The editorial stewardship of CHEST changes hands.Chest. 2005; 128: 1-3Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (9) Google Scholar the Associate Editors and I knew that we had two difficult decisions to make. They were related to (1) what we should do about the journal continuing to have a cardiology focus, and (2) what we should do about inheriting a backlog of 500 accepted manuscripts. Although the CHEST organization and CHEST journal have a legacy of being a cardiopulmonary society and journal, it had become clear that the best cardiology articles were being published elsewhere. Based on this realization and a readership survey, we decided to focus only on cardiovascular issues that related to pulmonary, sleep, critical care,1Irwin R.S. The editorial stewardship of CHEST changes hands.Chest. 2005; 128: 1-3Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (9) Google Scholar and additionally, antithrombotic therapy rather than pure cardiology issues. Although this was a tough decision to make, and those who were unhappy with our decision let us know that we “made a very big mistake” and why, no decision would be tougher to make and none would be criticized more harshly than how we handled the enormous backlog of accepted manuscripts. We decided to publish them all as quickly as possible, with the largest number being published in the October 2005 issue (Fig 1). Even though we alerted readers by printing on the covers of the huge issues that a few issues would be much larger than usual and why, as soon as the October issue reached readers, we started getting letters and e-mails of outrage, some of which I quote here. “Professor Irwin, congratulations, in the 3 short months that you have been the Editor in Chief of CHEST, you have ruined the journal.” Another reader wrote: “What is going on with the journal? My dog, who normally trots out to the mailbox to pick up the mail, dislocated its jaw when he tried to carry the October issue of CHEST back to the house.” Under the subject heading of “I’m a chest man but this is the largest CHEST I’ve ever seen.,” the body of that email stated: “I was not too upset with the first mega-CHEST. However, the vol 128 slipped off my desk and crushed my foot. Please get a grip here. Not every article submitted needs to be published. This has gone beyond absurd. Do what editors do and use some judgment. I hope your publishing and mailing costs don’t break the bank and lead to increased fees due to this tripe. If so, I, for one, will consider dropping my membership to ACCP after 25 years.” Although we felt, and still do, that we did what needed to be done, it was clear to us that we were not off to an auspicious start! Like some other medical journals, we trialed having authors, in their own words, create answers to the questions: How does your work advance the field? What are the clinical implications of your work? Our plan was to then publish the questions and answers as an insert on the same page as the abstract of the article. Within a few short months, we realized that the authors were stating wildly exaggerated and incorrect things about their results that reviewers were not picking up on and that we had to revise. On the same day that we were thinking of how to deal with our ever-increasing workload to revise the answers to the questions, we read one group of authors’ response to the clinical implications question of their clinical paper that we were about to publish; they stated: “There is no clinical significance of this study.” This seemingly minor response of these authors in the context of the ever-increasing workload spontaneously provoked us to decide to eliminate the information boxes. Reviewing the content of abstracts and comparing them with companion author inserts in other journals has led me to believe that other journals might also want to eliminate publishing these inserts. As I wrote in a commentary in 2009,2Irwin R.S. The role of conflict of interest in reporting of scientific information.Chest. 2009; 136: 253-259Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (39) Google Scholar I thought that I was prepared to carry out the duties of being Editor in Chief on July 1, 2005, and that nothing would surprise me. I was wrong. Although I was aware that scientific misconduct occurred in the reporting of scientific information, I was surprised at how much we have uncovered and continue to uncover working with the CHEST journal and how unethical behavior is often not intuitively obvious to those who perpetrate it. The commentary2Irwin R.S. The role of conflict of interest in reporting of scientific information.Chest. 2009; 136: 253-259Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (39) Google Scholar focused on the role of conflict of interest in the reporting of scientific information and reviewed strategies to mitigate conflict of interest. It is hypocritical (and unethical)3Irwin R.S. Augustyn N. French C.T. et al.Spread the word about the journal in 2013: from citation manipulation to invalidation of patient-reported outcomes measures to renaming the Clara Cell to new journal features.Chest. 2013; 143: 1-4Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (21) Google Scholar of editors and journals to openly, covertly, or semicovertly encourage authors to cite recent articles in their journals to game the impact factor when the same individual or entities rail against such practices in public. We are aware of multiple examples of this. However, this practice does not rise to the level of being the most hypocritical experience I have encountered. That designation is awarded to The Lancet because The Lancet, in 2006, required full disclosures (and still does) from authors who submitted to it in the spirit of full transparency; however, they published in 2006,4Cough guidelines choke on evidence.Lancet. 2006; 367: 276Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (14) Google Scholar and to my knowledge, still publish, unsigned editorials. What is hypocritical about this? Ethicists Smith et al5Smith P.J. Alexander G.C. Siegler M. Should editorials in peer-reviewed journals be signed?.Chest. 2006; 129: 1395-1396Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (5) Google Scholar have written that “unsigned editorials violate the spirit of transparency that is designed to minimize potential conflicts of interest and to place responsibility on authors in scientific journals.” In 2006, the unsigned editorialist of The Lancet took issue with the American College of Chest Physicians Cough Guidelines,4Cough guidelines choke on evidence.Lancet. 2006; 367: 276Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (14) Google Scholar of which I was the Chair. Although we did have an opportunity to write a responding letter to set the record straight that was published in The Lancet,6Irwin R.S. Gutterman D.D. American College of Chest Physicians cough guidelines.Lancet. 2006; 367: 981Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (8) Google Scholar we would have preferred to have known who personally wrote the editorial.7Irwin R.S. In the spirit of full disclosure.Chest. 2006; 129: 1395Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar Wouldn’t you? Smith et al5Smith P.J. Alexander G.C. Siegler M. Should editorials in peer-reviewed journals be signed?.Chest. 2006; 129: 1395-1396Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (5) Google Scholar have agreed with Richard Smith, a former editor of The BMJ, who wrote in 1999 that “[S]cience is progressively moving away from anonymity. Anonymous editorials in scientific journals were common a decade ago; now they look anachronistic.”8Smith R. Opening up BMJ peer review.BMJ. 1999; 318: 4-5Crossref PubMed Scopus (132) Google Scholar Identifying reviewers who can be counted on to provide high-quality reviews, and in a timely fashion, is a challenge; however, it is an even bigger challenge to have such individuals have the time and accept the invitation to do the review. It is for these reasons that we maintain a database of thousands of potential reviewers whose previous reviews have been scored for their quality and timeliness. We also maintain a record of how many reviews each individual has performed on a yearly basis. Although it is a common occurrence to have potential reviewers decline to review an occasional manuscript for us, it is much less common to have a potential reviewer constantly and consistently decline to review for us year after year, while regularly submitting their own research manuscripts to us and expecting us to find competent reviewers for their manuscripts. I have found this behavior to qualify as my biggest disappointment of the past 14 years because reviewers have an opportunity to advance the field by advising and mentoring others through their reviews. And, when it has happened, I have contacted the individual and brought the matter to their attention by writing the following: “I find it interesting that you submit manuscripts to us like this one and expect, as you should, that we will be able to find competent reviewers; yet, I cannot remember the last time you accepted our invitation to review a paper for us.” Most of the time, the response has been similar to this: “Thanks for your email. I went back and looked at my last review for CHEST---and I’m embarrassed that you are completely correct!…I think that being a good citizen is very important and will be more mindful of your requests. I really do appreciate your email.” Only once in 14 years did I receive a completely different response…and it was a beauty. The respondent stated that he did not have the time to review the work of others and that I had a lot of nerve to suggest what he should do with his time. He ended with writing that he would not be intimidated by me. This individual failed the propriety and good citizen test; because of that, it has not been possible for us to forget this individual’s response. When I have lectured on medical publishing, I have covered what authors should do if and when they receive a rejection. This has included the following advice: (1) have a plan B journal identified to which you can submit the manuscript, (2) ask the editor to reconsider if you truly have a legitimate reason (eg, substandard reviews, suspected bias), (3) do not let the rejection deter you from submitting to that journal in the future, and (4) do not take the rejection personally. Although I have received many an angry response to a rejection, such as ones laced with obscenities and also the one calling me a “stupid guy,” there are two that stand out the most. The most outrageous suggested that I will be punished by the Lord and that “you must go to Great Church and confess your guilt.” Close behind was the implication that I was antisemitic. Although I have not, as a general rule, responded to all outrageous e-mails, I did to this one and wrote that if I were prejudicial as you suggest, “my parents and grandparents would rise from their graves and chastise me; and my wife, daughters, and rabbi would never let me hear the end of it.” The most bizarre incident I have in my Editor in Chief storehouse of memories occurred on May 31, 2007. Nothing has come close. On that day, I received the following e-mail: “As a consultant chestologist, I’d like to commend you on an excellent website, which I use for many queries related to my work in the chestular area. As Archimedes once said: ‘A grain of sand is like a flying bird after sunset on a wedding day.’” To this day, I still have no idea what he (or Archimedes) meant. As many journals do, we encourage authors to suggest preferred and nonpreferred reviewers when they submit their manuscripts. To my surprise, authors of a manuscript on cough listed Richard Irwin as a nonpreferred reviewer. Because I was the Richard Irwin they were referring to, and I was the Editor in Chief of the journal who was going to make the final decision on their manuscript, I thought it imprudent of them to imply that I might not give them a fair review. I did review the manuscript. There have been many memories of which we have been proud. These have included CHEST being voted in 2009 to be among the 100 most influential journals of Biology and Medicine of the last 100 years by the prestigious, international, 11,000-member Special Libraries Association. CHEST competed in a field of nominated journals of Pulmonology and related Respiratory Sciences and was the only journal in these categories to make it into the top 100. We have also been proud of consistently (1) ranking first in third-party readership surveys by Kantar Media as the source of information most preferred by practicing pulmonologists and (2) ranking second in both respiratory and critical care categories according to a metric, the Eigenfactor, that weighs citations from the most influential journals and eliminates self-citations. However, my proudest memory is receiving accolades from Al Soffer, the fifth Editor in Chief of CHEST, praising me for the job that I was doing as the Editor in Chief. His praises will always be among my fondest memories because Al Soffer helped launch my academic career. After Mark Rosen, Sidney Braman, and I had received rejections of our review article, “Cough: A Comprehensive Review,”9Irwin R.S. Rosen J.M. Braman S.S. Cough: a comprehensive review.Arch Intern Med. 1977; 137: 1186-1191Crossref PubMed Google Scholar from 10 journals, I took a chance and called Al Soffer at the American College of Chest Physicians because he had a reputation of enjoying being a mentor. To my surprise, he answered my call. When I shared with him the fate of our manuscript, he encouraged me to send it to him. Approximately 1 week later, he called me, said it was terrific and novel, and suggested that I shorten the manuscript, wait 2 months, and submit it to the Archives of Internal Medicine where it could possibly be published in 1977 because he was about to also become the Editor in Chief of that journal. Preparing that review article and having it published in the Archives of Internal Medicine enlightened us as to what was not known about cough and set the stage for decades of research on which we embarked. Some might say that my following in the steps of Al Soffer as the Editor in Chief of CHEST was fulfilling destiny. Like Al, I have enjoyed collaborating with the younger CHEST reviewers and authors, and it has been a source of pleasure for me to have watched both develop and mature as the experts and senior professionals in their fields. On departing as Editor in Chief, I am grateful for having had the opportunity to do the job. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional life. I can honestly say that I have never regretted taking on the responsibilities and duties of the position,1Irwin R.S. The editorial stewardship of CHEST changes hands.Chest. 2005; 128: 1-3Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (9) Google Scholar not even once in 14 years. I also want to wish my successor, Peter Mazzone, and his team, the best of luck. I look forward to his editorial in the July issue of CHEST in which he will share his plans for the future of the journal CHEST. Financial/nonfinancial disclosures: The author has reported to CHEST the following: R. S. I. is Editor in Chief of the journal CHEST. Although not employed by the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST), a portion of his salary comes from the organization as a stipend. /cms/asset/2bbfb8a1-9eba-4b1c-a50a-ffb9515caa06/mmc1.mp3Loading ... Download .mp3 (41.57 MB) Help with .mp3 files Audio