The Responsibilities of Medical Editors

The following statement was drafted at a meeting of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) during a meeting at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, January 22-26, 2001. It has been revised by the Editorial Policy Committee and reviewed by the Executive Committee of the WAME Board before being posted on the WAME website.
 
Editors should:
1. Respect their journal’s constituents (readers, authors, reviewers, and the human subjects of research) by:
  • Making the journal’s processes (e.g., governance, editorial staff members, number of reviewers, review times, acceptance rate) transparent;
  • Thanking reviewers for their work;
  • Protecting the confidentiality of human subjects.
2. Promote self-correction in science and participate in efforts to improve the practice of scientific investigation by:
  • Publishing corrections, retractions, and critiques of published articles;
  • Take responsibility for improving the level of scientific investigation and medical writing in the larger community of potential authors and readers.
3. Assure honesty and integrity of the content of their journal and minimize bias by:
  • Managing conflicts of interest;
  • Maintaining confidentiality of information;
  • Separating the editorial and business functions of the journal.
4. Improve the quality of their journal by:
  • Becoming familiar with the best practice in editing, peer review, research ethics, methods of investigation, and the rationale and evidence base supporting them;
  • Establishing appropriate programs to monitor journals’ performance;
  • Soliciting external evaluations of the journal’s effectiveness.
Posted August 5, 2003