Section Editor Research Articles

Impact of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology Mentorship Award Program on Careers in Pediatric Dermatology: Workforce Implications.

Extended essays or commentaries providing an opportunity to express personal views and opinions that are meant to enlighten, entertain, and educate readers, and can include articles about medical history, ethics, literature or the arts related to pediatric dermatology. Patient perspectives are also encouraged. Questions on whether a potential submission is appropriate for this section can be addressed to the Editors-in-Chief, or the Section Editors, Lucinda Kohn, MD, MHS (lucinda.kohn@cuanschutz.edu) or Neil Prose, MD (prose001@mc.duke.edu).

From the Section Editors: Diagnosing Evaluations—A Methodological Perspective

From the Section Editors: Diagnosing Evaluations—A Methodological Perspective

Editorial introductions

Current Opinion in Supportive and Palliative Care was launched in 2007. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The fields of supportive and palliative care are divided into 12 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal’s Section Editors for this issue.

European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Publication Standards for Reporting Vascular Surgical Research

Manuscripts submitted to the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (EJVES) often contain shortcomings in baseline scientific principles and incorrectly applied methodology. Consequently, the editorial team is forced to offer post hoc repair in an attempt to support the authors to improve their manuscripts. This repair could theoretically have been prevented by providing more clear definitions and reporting standards to serve researchers when planning studies and eventually writing their manuscripts. Therefore, here we summarise the general principles for EJVES reporting standards. These reporting standards did not follow a systematic approach but reflect the common opinion of the current senior and section editors team. This team decided to only include recommendations regarding the most common pathologies in vascular surgery in this first edition of reporting standards, namely carotid artery disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD), and chronic venous disease. In future editions, we plan to expand the areas of research. We present (1) a common set of minimum but required reporting standards applicable to every report, e.g., patient characteristics, study design, treatment environment, selection criteria, core outcomes of interventions such as 30 day death and morbidity, and measures for completeness of data including outcome information, and (2) a common set of minimum reporting standards for four vascular areas. The editors of the EJVES propose universally accepted definitions and reporting standards for carotid artery disease, AAA, PAOD, and chronic venous disease. This will enable the development of a convincing body of evidence to aid future clinical practice guidelines and drive clinical practice in the right direction. These first ever publication and reporting standards for EJVES aim to improve future research in our journal.

A new Section Editor for Acta Cryst. B.

Introducing the new Section Editor for Acta Cryst. B.

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies: An Introduction from the Special Section Editors

This inaugural article delineates the vision and scope of the new section “Qualitative Comparative Policy Studies” of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. The co-editors present the five key features of the section: the comparative, the transnational, the relational, the global, and the self-reflective. Concretely, they invite contributions on qualitative empirical research that (i) is comparative in its methods and interpretive framework, (ii) draws on the transnational dimension, (iii) considers the relational dimension of network governance, (iv) recognizes an unequal global setting, and (v) is self-reflective and interrogates international comparison as a governance tool. By definition, qualitative comparison is contextual comparison that differentiates between place and space and the temporalities of comparative policy analysis (period, timing, tempo, sequence, lifespan, and age).

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

On Concepts, Analytics, and Statistics in Comparative Policy Studies: An Introduction from the New Section Editors

Effective comparative public policy research necessitates three key aspects. Firstly, it requires concepts that allow the differences in policies and policy developments across various domains to be discerned. Secondly, even with robust concepts established, they typically must be “put into practice”. This means scholars need analytical tools that can either provide theoretical insights helpful in creating careful research designs or extract relevant information from laws, legislation, and other governmental sources and organize it meaningfully. Lastly, the objective of these endeavors is to produce statistics on policies or their effects that permit robust conclusions to be drawn about policy efficacy and impact. Building upon this “trinity” as the foundation of successful comparative policy research, the new section editors of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis (JCPA) are seeking contributions in the areas of policy concepts, analytics, and statistics. This introductory article further clarifies what these aspects entail and presents examples from existing research that may align with this section.

From the Section Editors: International Advances in Evaluation

From the Section Editors: International Advances in Evaluation

Global Financial Dynamics: Crisis, Ethics, and Market Impacts: Insights from the June 2023 Issue

With the collaborative support of the editorial board members, authors, reviewers, section editors, technical editors, and production editor, we successfully launched the June 2023 issue of the International Journal of Accounting, Business, and Finance (IJABF). Volume 2, Issue 2 of IJABF features five articles addressing contemporary issues. The authors explore these research questions through empirical results, providing insights and directions for future studies. We extend our gratitude to all contributors to this issue.

A Deeper Look at Proposed Surveillance of Superficial Incision Surgical Site Infections (SSISSIs)

Although the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) recommends the reporting of superficial incisional SSIs, the standardized infection ratio (SIR) models used by the NSHN exclude superficial incisional SSIs cases. Yet, some superficial incisional SSIs may lead to serious adverse patient outcomes. We previously proposed a new category of such infections: serious superficial incisional surgical site infections (SSISSIs), defined as a superficial incisional SSI that (1) required debridement in an operating room and/or (2) led to a hospital readmission within 30 days of surgery. The objective of our study was to determine the prevalence of SSISSIs in a large network of community hospitals and compare hospital rankings of SSI rates of organ/space and deep SSIs (complex SSIs) with and without SSISSIs. We performed a retrospective descriptive analysis of prospectively collected data on 35 NHSN surgical categories in 47 community hospitals within the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network (DICON) from 1/1/2013-12/31/2022. All hospitals used standardized surveillance and data collection strategies throughout the study period. The Wilcoxon rank-sum was used to test for differences in performance rankings of hospitals sorted by rates of complex SSIs alone compared to complex and SSISSI rates. A two-tailed P value of .05 or less was considered significant. Overall, 11,617 SSIs occurred after 1,272,257 surgeries (0.91 SSIs/100 procedures). Out of 3,996 superficial SSIs, 2,038 (17.5% overall, 51.0% of superficial incisional) met criteria for SSISSI. 112 (5.5%) were diagnosed during the current admission and required takeback to the OR for infection; 1,926 (94.5%) were diagnosed during a readmission; and 3841 (33.1%) were diagnosed during readmission and returned to the OR. (Table1) The highest proportion of SSISSIs was diagnosed in patients who underwent gastrointestinal surgery (32.0%) or orthopedic surgery (24.0%). (Table2) Performance ranking of individual hospitals based on rates of complex SSIs, differed significantly when including SSISSIs (p= 0.02). (Table3) Discussion Our findings suggest that SSISSIs make up a moderate but important proportion of SSIs in community hospitals. SSISSIs can be identified through established database surveillance looking at objective measures of returning to the OR for debridement and/or readmission within 30 days. Hospital rankings differed significantly when SSISSIs were added to complex SSIs to calculate SSI rates. As such, including SSISSIs likely provides a more accurate depiction of SSIs with important outcomes and is not as subjective to surveillance bias. Next steps would be specifically to look at outcomes data for complex SSIs compared to SSISSIs to fully evaluate theDisclosure: Jessica Seidelman: UptoDate- Section Editor; BoneSupport- Consultant

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

From the Section Editors: Teaching & Learning Section Vision: Innovate, Evaluate, Disseminate

This editorial introduces the new editorial team and vision of the Teaching and Learning of Evaluation (T&L) Section. With deep expertise in evaluation theory, methodology, and practice, Schröter and Woodland bring a vision of advancing the pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy of evaluation through innovative practices and inclusivity. This note outlines the section's focus on systematically examining T&L in evaluation, showcasing articles that inform instructional innovations, curriculum development, and educational research. The editors invite contributions from diverse perspectives, encompassing formal and informal settings, transdisciplinary boundaries, and various dimensions of T&L environments in evaluation. Highlighting recent articles aligned with the section's goals, the editors invite feedback and involvement from readers and contributors to further enhance the T&L section's impact. As they embark on this journey, Schröter and Woodland express their commitment to fostering a vibrant and inclusive community dedicated to advancing evaluation through transformative T&L practices.

From the Desk of the Sectional Editor

From the Desk of the Sectional Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor

Meet the Section Editor