This year I peer reviewed perhaps x10 more manuscripts than I wrote myself (as lead author).

Here's what I have taken away about how authors can help me to produce peer review that will be useful for journal + the authors.
@BJSurgery @ColorectalDis @Anaes_Journal @PLOSGPH
1/15 A clear TITLE that captures the topic and study design is important. It primes me for what I am going to read next, so I can start organising my own thoughts. Factors to consider reviewing e.g. RCT versus meta-analysis are very different.
2/15

The Editor's Choice in today's @TheLancet is the @FalconRct.

FALCON recruited 5,788 patients across 54 hospitals in 🇧🇯🇬🇭🇮🇳🇲🇽🇳🇬🇷🇼🇿🇦

Here's the story of FALCON & its global leaders who, over past 5 years, formed strong multilateral ties & friendships.

thelancet.com/journals/lance… The story of @FalconRct starts with the @GlobalSurg-2 cohort study.

Published in @TheLancetInfDis, this cohort study of 12,539 patients from 343 hospitals in 66 countries found that surgical site infection risk is greatest in low HDI countries.

thelancet.com/action/showPdf…

The @CovidSurg Week study found surgery should be delayed ≥7 weeks following SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Frequent Qs about this finding:
1⃣Applicability to children
…-publications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11…
2⃣Global applicability
…-publications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11…

We've addressed these Qs in @Anaes_Journal. We pooled 30-day postop mortality children from @CovidSurg cohort study (Feb-July 2020) & @CovidSurg Week (Oct 2020).

Periop (7 days preop to 30 days postop) SARS-CoV-2:
2⃣.8⃣% (11/393) mortality

Preop (>7 days preop) SARS-CoV-2:
0⃣% (0/97) mortality

…-publications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.11…

So this is an example of how Impact Factor may not always tell the full story.

Reminder - 2021 impact factor is calculated as:

Denominator: articles published in 2018-19

Numerator: citations to those denominator articles, published in 2019-21

So what's happened at IJS?

https://twitter.com/HerniaResearch/status/1410341063018024970

In the IJS impact factor calculation, two articles in the denominator account for 37.5% (1342/3582) of all citations.

No other articles captured in the denominator received >25 citations.

Excluding those top two articles would drop IJS IF from 6.1 to 3⃣.8⃣ (2240/588).

Interesting article on the future of selection for surgical training by @J_Hardie, @BrennanSurgeon & co.

They don't make the point exactly but I think we need to move from differentiating candidates based on knowledge/ tick boxes of achievement, to testing aptitude & attitudes.

https://twitter.com/RCSnews/status/1409829230310047744

Clearly someone entering ST3 surgery can be expected to have a baseline of knowledge, skills, and experience. This should form the essential criteria. But I'm not sure it is useful to differentiate based on number of hernias done or posters presented so long as a minimum met.

It's great to see so much interest in @CovidSurg's first paper in @TheLancet.

This paper was only possible because of the enthusiasm & pooled effort of hundreds of people around the world.

@aneelbhangu & I would like to highlight some key groups

🔗thelancet.com/action/showPdf…
[1/7] Firstly, the Operations Committee. They have worked long days on @CovidSurg: setting up/ running REDCap databases, maintaining communications, chasing up data queries, and many, many other tasks.

The Ops Committee range from medical students to senior surgical trainees.

[2/7]