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CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 28, No 1, January/February 2017
AFRICA
3
From the Editor’s Desk
The peer-review process is a vital part of scientific publication
and seeks to ensure that what is published has been effectively
scrutinised for scientific integrity, validity and ethical conduct in
research. No matter how good peer review may be it is inevitably,
by its very nature, limited to the opinions of a small number of
reviewers and editors.
An important part of peer review, little mentioned, occurs
after publication when the published work is exposed to a very
much wider audience. This readership is often in a better position
to offer critical opinions or commendations than the initial
reviewers and is able to make its opinion known through letters
to the editor. When these are published they offer important
insights into the merit or otherwise of prior articles and serve an
important educational purpose.
Sadly of late there have been few such letters submitted to
this journal. I encourage all readers of this journal to consider
submitting letters of criticism or acclaim to the journal for
consideration for publication. Ideally they should be brief and
to the point, referencing the article under discussion with no
more than three to five additional references. All letters will be
submitted to the author of the original article, offering a right of
reply. The letter and response, if forthcoming, will be published
together. Letters to the editor (and the response) will not be
subjected to further review but will be accepted or rejected based
on the opinion of the editor.
The contributions by readers criticising or commenting on
published work are an important part of scientific and clinical
responsibility for all of us and I encourage all readers to
participate actively so as to enhance the scientific integrity and
value of the CVJA. Detailed instructions for authors of letters to
the editor will be added to the website shortly but in the interim
I will gladly accept submissions under the conditions outlined
above.
In an attempt to diversify the content of the journal and
to cater for the ever-growing importance of diverse imaging
modalities, I plan to develop a series of ‘Images in Cardiology’.
The exact requirements will be posted in the instructions
for authors on the journal website shortly. In the interim, I
invite the submission of suitable images for consideration for
publication. The images should be of high quality and suitable
for publication, as already specified on the website. They should
be accompanied by a brief clinical vignette, a report of why the
imaging modality was chosen and how it contributed to patient
outcome. A description of the results of imaging, suitably
labelled with arrows or other markers, indicating areas of
particular interest is essential. A maximum of five references may
be supplied. Priority will be given to images of cardiac diseases
commonly seen in Africa. Submissions will be subject to peer
review by experts in the field.
With the dramatic developments that have occurred in the
field of imaging and that have revolutionised cardiovascular
diagnosis over the last several decades, some ‘old standards’
seem to have fallen away and receive less attention than they did
previously. One such is electrocardiography, which many believe,
as I do, still serves as an essential aid to clinical diagnosis. It is
cheap, reproducible, non-invasive and readily available. I hope
to develop a series of ECG presentations to be produced on a
regular basis. Other cardiovascular journals publish an ‘ECG
quiz’ and I enjoy them. I sense however that some such quizzes
are often difficult for the average clinician, such as myself,
and therefore are avoided. My plan is to provide educational
ECGs linked to clinical cases, which would be of interest
to physicians and clinical cardiologists, rather than specialist
electrophysiologists.
I hope that these new initiatives will meet with your support
and that you will continue to contribute to the journal and
criticise or comment in letters to the editor when you find
it necessary. Please feel free to contact me, by a letter for
publication, as above, or via the journal e-mail, with suggestions
as to how the journal could be improved to better meet your
needs.
Patrick Commerford
Editor-in-Chief