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The following paper was published in Annals of Medicine and Surgery.

How to approach supervisors for research opportunities

It has nothing to do with medicine or surgery.

How can one think of submitting a paper like that (to such a journal)? And how can one accept a paper like that?

terdon
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sean
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    I don't get it. What's wrong with it? Not all articles in a journal have to be about primary research... – Eppicurt Nov 03 '17 at 05:55
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    Given the number of questions that we receive here on how to approach supervisors, I wouldn't call such a paper "weird". And probably before submitting the authors had contacted the editor to verify the possible interest of the paper. – Massimo Ortolano Nov 03 '17 at 06:15
  • Not a duplicate, but somewhat related question here : Is Obama's JAMA paper OK? – Burak Ulgut Nov 03 '17 at 08:56
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    @Eppicurt: "What's wrong with it? Not all articles in a journal have to be about primary research... " - but typically, all articles in a journal should be on research from the general subject area covered by the journal. The linked article is not secondary research on medicine or surgery, I think it is rather primary research in quite a different field (hmm, social interaction-something?), even though it may be using (teaching related to) medicine or surgery as a case study. – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 11:04
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    I humbly suggest to call this type of publication a boat programming paper. – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 11:13
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    @O.R.Mapper medical journals also cover practice. They are professional journals, not exclusively for research. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 18:31
  • @Fomite: As explained in my other comment, I am not convinced a purely organisational aspect of studying medicine could reasonably be counted as "medical practice". – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 21:44
  • PLoS Comp Biol runs an entire article type called 'Ten Simple Rules', a lot of which are similar to this: http://collections.plos.org/ten-simple-rules – arboviral Nov 03 '17 at 22:39
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    Interestingly, the second reviewer (review freely accessible from the OP's link) also considered that AMS was not the good venue for this article. – Taladris Nov 04 '17 at 13:45
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    There are many things which don't make any sense at all which seem to win world records, and lots of stuff you realize that is great that gets refused. You just have to learn to live with that. The world is a huge bowl of confusion. And that by design. – mathreadler Nov 04 '17 at 20:29
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this question is related to a specific journal and its internal policies rather than academia. – padawan Nov 05 '17 at 11:47

4 Answers4

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It has nothing to do with Medicine or Surgery.

This will come as a surprise to the large number of medical students, medical and surgical interns, etc. who are interested in getting some experience in research, either to broaden their base of knowledge or with the mind to transition toward academic medicine.

How can one think of submitting a paper like that (to such a journal)?

You think "Here is a pressing question some people in my field have encountered..." and, for something like this, you likely contact the editorial office to make sure it's of interest. Or you submit to a journal that has a consistent track record of publishing papers on the practice of their subject.

How can one accept a paper like that?

Having been a reviewer on similar types of papers - once the editor has decided it may be of interest you read it over, make sure you think the content is accurate and it will be of interest, make any comments you might have, and submit your review. Other times, the review is internal.

Fomite
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    If the editor(s) of the journal think it is of interest to the readership, they are at liberty to accept it. If you're unsure what a journal is/isn't interested in publishing, you can usually email the editor and find out! – thomasfedb Nov 03 '17 at 06:57
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    @thomasfedb I mention doing exactly that... – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 06:58
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    Just thought it was worth emphasising @Formite – thomasfedb Nov 03 '17 at 07:02
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    "This will come as a surprise to the large number of medical students, medical and surgical interns, etc. who are interested in getting some experience in research" - by the same logic, a list of traffic signs would be on-topic for the journal, because medical students and surgical interns might want to drive to their institution by car. It's well possible the journal accepts publications related to some topics not directly in the research focus, but "some people in my field have encountered [a given question]" does not seem sufficient to establish any kind of general topic. – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 11:07
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    @O.R.Mapper Oh, come on. There's a world of difference between a question that many medical students have wanted to ask about the practice of their field and a question they have wanted to ask about some random other subject. – David Richerby Nov 03 '17 at 17:27
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    @DavidRicherby my thoughts exactly. Especially given medical journals are not only research journals, but often involve professional practice in one form or another. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 17:39
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    @O.R.Mapper I said pressing question. Getting into research is a somewhat opaque process that can change careers. Your example...is just being obtuse. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 17:40
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    @O.R.Mapper I believe there is a strong case for calling that a false equivelance. Sorry –  Nov 03 '17 at 18:17
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    @DavidRicherby: I'd agree if the topic were interdisciplinary, somewhere between studies of medicine and studies of teaching. That might, for instance, be the case when presenting teaching or learning techniques specifically suited or developed for conveying professional medical knowledge. But I do not see this connection to "the practice of their field" when it comes to purely organisational or social aspects that also happen to occur during studies of medicine, such as how to contact a possible supervisor. – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 21:40
  • @O.R.Mapper I'd argue that they are distinct, and indeed interdisciplinary, because the practice of medicine and medical research are not perfectly overlapping. The vast majority of MDs will have done little to no research, and it's not an expectation for their degree. There are also nuances in things like funding for people who also have clinical duties. It may also occur outside a formal degree program (interns, residency, etc.) and the answers are highly specific to the medical field. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 21:50
  • @Fomite: "The vast majority of MDs will have done little to no research" - this sounds like how to contact a supervisor is even farther from medical practice than from medical research, and thus even more off-topic. I definitely see why the information in this paper could be relevant and interesting both to medical researchers and to medical practitioners, but that alone does not determine the field the paper belongs to, especially because - other than maybe the mention of PubMed - this particular paper seems to be pretty generic and not at all "highly specific to the medical field". ... – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 21:57
  • ... At least, the advice given therein more or less matches with the various bits and pieces of advice about contacting supervisors in any field here on [academia.se]. – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 21:59
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    @O.R.Mapper Something doesn't have to be exclusively useful to a field to be worth publishing in a particular journal in that field, especially one that has a wide catchment area of people in different career stages. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 22:01
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    @O.R.Mapper Your "road signs example" is hugely contrived, and not even in the same ballpark as being interested in gaining research experience. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 22:07
  • @O.R.Mapper Have you read enough of the paper to observe that it is written specifically for medical students? – Jessica B Nov 04 '17 at 09:23
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    @JessicaB: I have read the entire paper and except for the mention of PubMed, it is entirely unspecific to medicine. (Obviously, terms like medical student and various medical topics are used as examples, but these could trivially be substituted with terms from another discipline without changing anything else about the paper.) – O. R. Mapper Nov 04 '17 at 09:53
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    @O.R.Mapper By that logic (to borrow your phrase) no methods tutorials belong in these journals either, as there are no medicine-specific regression models. – Fomite Nov 04 '17 at 09:54
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    @Fomite: If it is as you say (I do not claim to know any medical papers on regression models), I tend to agree. Indeed, one of the biggest problems I encounter every now and then during literature survey for CS research is that some generic concepts are first presented in the context of very specific use cases in a paper from another field (rather than as an abstract, reusable concept, with references to related, abstract concepts). – O. R. Mapper Nov 04 '17 at 16:20
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From the journal webpage:

Scope of the Journal

  • Audit Projects
  • Case Reports
  • Original Research
  • Reviews, Commentaries, Letters
  • AMS covers the whole of medicine and surgery - clinical and basic sciences

It would be an unusual article in a journal that only published research articles, but some have other types of entry as well, and this is one of them.

Jessica B
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    @O.R.Mapper The first page of the paper classifies it as "Review". – Massimo Ortolano Nov 03 '17 at 11:34
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    @MassimoOrtolano: That makes things even more baffling, given that a review article typically reviews other works. This is corroborated by the Authors Guide that places review articles in the category of publications that may have more references (up to 50, or even more with editor approval) - while the paper in question has zero. – O. R. Mapper Nov 03 '17 at 11:47
  • @O.R.Mapper reviews also must have clear introducing and concluding sections – StrongBad Nov 03 '17 at 15:02
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    To me, the article in question falls squarely under the 'Commentaries' listing, not a review. Still, as pointed out elsewhere, articles of broad interest to the journal's community are covered by the journal. – Jon Custer Nov 03 '17 at 15:51
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    @JonCuster I feel like an article titled How to ... falls squarely into the How To type article. That said the journal has 16 different article types, and as long as it is not labeled Original Research I am not sure that readers really care. – StrongBad Nov 03 '17 at 16:04
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It has nothing to do with medicine or surgery.

I fully agree, and this should probably rule out a publication in a venue focusing on these topics.

However, the crucial detail here is probably that the journal in question includes a little more than these topics. According to the Guide for Authors:

As a general medical and surgical journal, Annals of Medicine and Surgery covers all specialties, and is dedicated to publishing original research, review articles and more all offering significant contributions to knowledge in clinical surgery, experimental surgery, surgical education and history.

(highlighting by myself)

Arguably, the paper in question is covered by the topic of surgical (or otherwise) education.

O. R. Mapper
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This is really very common, especially in high-impact journals that expect to have a broad readership. Science and Nature routinely run editorials and news articles on many aspects of scientific and non-scientific culture. PNAS includes little biographies of their members. Journal of Virology includes comments from its editor (for example, "the change that is under way in scientific publishing"). A 5-second skim of various medical journals turns up recent papers on Racism in Medicine (Annals of Internal Medicine), Staying Current in Medicine: Advice for New Doctors (New England Journal of Medicine), and so on.

Many journals, especially but not only those published by Societies, see their role as serving their membership more broadly than simply stolidly publishing research. The "advice to a young doctor" theme, like the one the question refers to, is particularly common; Pubmed lists several hundred.

In sum, this is absolutely normal and extremely common. If you read journals for more than a year or so you will see dozens of similarly-themed articles.

(Nature in particular notoriously used to run April Fools articles; I don't think they still do, particularly since a researcher claimed he had spent significant money following up on an April Fools article, since in his country he had never heard of the April Fools tradition.)

iayork
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  • You said that this is really very common, but all the examples you gave are related to medicine. – sean Nov 03 '17 at 17:24
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    @qsp You are wrong. Two of the four topics I explicitly listed are non-medical (publishing and members' biographies). Science and Nature write on many topics. – iayork Nov 03 '17 at 18:02
  • @iayork Agreed. I'd argue most of your examples are medical specific. – Fomite Nov 03 '17 at 22:07
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    Two of seven examples is not "most". Journal of Virology, PNAS, Nature, and Science are not "medical specific". You seem to be reaching to make some kind of obscure point here. Is there something in the question that says "Ignore medical journals"? Is there some concept that says "Anything with 'ology' in it is scary and must be medical"? If you have a point, make it, instead of complaining about something that is (1) wrong and (2) irrelevant. – iayork Nov 04 '17 at 01:03