The RSNA Reviewer Mentorship Program

Abstract

Robert G. Sheiman, MD When I began reviewing manuscripts for Radiology some years ago, I would occasionally come across a scientific paper that potentially put forth a unique message or advancement but for which the important takehome message was almost impossible to extract due to the manuscript’s construction. I would conclude that either the authors had never been exposed to formal scientific writing methods or there was potentially a senior author or mentor whose input on manuscript construction was lacking or unheeded. I always believed that creation of a publishable manuscript depended not only on sound science but also on an understanding of the manuscript review process. The literature contains many works that formally detail the manuscript review process (1–3). The utility of such publications is supported by evidence that formal didactic training and knowledge of defined criteria for manuscript review have a positive impact on review quality (4,5). In the work by Schroter et al (5), manuscript reviewers either attended a formal workshop or were given a self-teaching training package. Both forms of education focused on what a journal editor looked for in a manuscript reviewer, as well as how to critique a manuscript. Immediately after training, manuscript review quality was higher in both groups compared with a control group (those receiving no formal review training). Of interest, the benefits from training were not seen after 6 months. Such findings indicate the importance of training for manuscript review but also raise the question of the need for long-term training of individuals who wish to perform manuscript review. Reviewer age also seems to play a part in the quality of manuscript review. Kliewer et al (6,7) tried to identify attributes that can predict a reviewer’s assessment of a scientific work. They found older reviewers with more experience tended to assign a lower score for overall manuscript importance. These authors felt that perhaps older reviewers favor manuscripts more in accord with their own views while younger reviewers seem to be more open-minded. This finding is also echoed by others (8,9) who quantitatively found that younger reviewers and those of more junior academic rank have the potential to produce more incisive and thoughtful reviews compared with their older and seasoned colleagues. Indirect support that younger individuals are more open-minded and less biased when performing a review also comes from the work of Ernst and Resch (10). In studying a reviewer’s assessment of a fictitious scientific paper that was focused on the reviewer’s field of expertise, it was found that a reviewer’s own concepts and bias affected how he or she judged the manuscript. Since, as stated by Lee Rogers, “Good reviewers make good journals” (11), how can we at Radiology identify those individuals with great potential as manuscript reviewers? Clearly, a continuous training process of younger individuals makes sense and can help identify those individuals who hold great promise as reviewers. Where can we find such individuals? Radiology residency programs across the country are an excellent source of eager young individuals who are more than willing to educate themselves and advance our field. In September 2006, we implemented at our institution a reviewer mentorship program that we hope will help identify individuals interested in becoming manuscript reviewers for the long term. The large number of Radiology associate editors to function as mentors within our radiology department afforded us acceleration of the process and ongoing program refinement. The program is now formally referred to as the Radiological Published online 10.1148/radiol.2443070830