AMA杂志副主编；德克萨斯大学西南医学院外科学教授；西北大学外科学教授；德克萨斯阿林顿大学生物医学工程及外科学教授Dr. Edward H. Livingston为参会者带来了题目为《What Editors Look for in Clinical Trials & JAMA for Chinese Readers》的精彩演讲。
Livingston指出：Clinical trials are essential for understanding treatment efficacy. JAMA has published many of the most important practice changing clinical trials in its more than 130 year history. JAMA has a reputation for rigorous scientific evaluation of the research it publishes resulting in it being rated as having the highest integrity of the major general medical journals in US-based reader surveys.
We will show how the journal is organized and what the various article-types have to offer clinician readers. The process JAMA editors use to evaluate manuscripts submitted for JAMA publication will also be reviewed. Common pitfalls frequently encountered by the JAMA editors in research studies will be shown. The intent is to assist investigators in their efforts to perform high quality clinical research and develop manuscripts that are competitive for the major, high-impact journals. Problems encountered during the process of manuscript review for articles that were ultimately published in JAMA will be discussed. These include a lack of a valid hypothesis, study/protocol design shortcomings, late trial registration, inadequate statistical analysis, incomplete data reporting and interpretation and more.
To facilitate access of JAMA content to Chinese physicians, JAMA Insert was launched on March 6, 2014 in collaboration with the China Medical Tribune (CMT).Two hundred and eight pages of JAMA content were translated into Chinese and published in 41 issues of the Chinese Medical Tribune. This JAMA-CMT collaboration facilitates Chinese clinician access to the most up-to-date medical research available in the US-based medical literature.
以下是《医学研究与发表》的专访
Correspondent：As a deputy editor of JAMA and a world renowned expert in General Surgery, you must have received many invitations worldwide. May I ask what made you to decide to accept our invitation? Is there any difference between this summit and other conferences you have attended previously?
Dr. Livingston： I do get a lot of invitations to give speeches about publishing in JAMA and I don’t accept many of them. But I was curious about this one. I hadn’t been to Wuhan before. I have been in China for a couple of times before but not to Wuhan. And, I was curious about what is happening in this summit and also about what is happening in Chinese medicine and Chinese research.
Correspondent：Your lecture topic at this summit is “What Editors Look for in Clinical Trials & JAMA for Chinese authors and readers”. Why did you choose to talk about the clinical trials and what message do you wish to convey to Chineseclinicians?
Dr. Livingston：The particular topic is one that I developed for talks which I give to physicians in the United States. I identified common problems with clinical research papers we see submitted to the journal. And I thought since these are common in the US, they must also be common in China. In general, Chinese investigators have less experience with clinical research than their counterparts in the United States. So the items that I brought up, like clinical trial registration, issues with statistical analysis, defining a particular study design，etc, those are things all investigators, including Chinese investigators, need to know more about, if they are going to publish their findings in journals like ours.
Correspondent：If you can recall, approximately how many clinical studies were submitted from China each year? Do you think whether Chinese clinicians have possessed any advantage in medical research or study?
Dr. Livingston: In 2014 we received 342 submissions at JAMA from China. We accepted 5 articles for an acceptance rate of 1.5%. This is somewhat lower than the overall acceptance rate of 4%. The year before, the acceptance rate from China was 4%. The advantage that Chinese investigators have is the ability to have very large studies. There have been studies from China with very large numbers of patients, studies with hundreds, tens of thousands or millions of patients. And, the ones that we published have very high quality data that is hard to collect from patients in the other countries. I think the main advantage is the sheer size of the medical system here in China that you can report our findings from very large numbers of patients.
Correspondent：What are the major reasons for rejection for papers submitted from China, in your opinion? Do you think the language editing is of help for publication?
Dr. Livingston：Probably the most common reason Chinese papers get rejected is they don't fulfill our criteria for accepting papers in terms of clinical trial design or the methods. The reasons for rejections of papers from China are the same as for papers from anywhere. Getting back to what I said earlier about clinical trial design and other aspects of clinical research that all of investigators need to know better applies to Chinese investigators and the papers they have submitted to us.
Another very important aspect of what we do regarding accepting papers is personally knowing the investigators and the institutions that they come from. That is probably the most important reason that I came on this visit to China. All of us in the senior leadership in JAMA have come to China and try to understand more about what is happening in China and Chinese research. Personal relationships with individuals, investigators, institutions are critically important in our business. We are much more likely to accept papers from investigators that we know who work in the institutions that we are familiar with.
In terms of language, yes, it is very, very important. It is not necessarily a deal killer if the language is bad - in fact we are working out of a paper from Japan right now. It was a very nice study, very well-done, but the language was very deficient. We, at JAMA, will fix the language. We have ability to do that. Several journals do, but not all, can do that. It is much more likely for a paper to be accepted if it is well written in the English language. Sometimes when papers are poorly written we cannot understand the paper. That is one reason that we will reject it. So language,the proper use of English language, can be very important.
Correspondent：What is your advice for Chinese researchers who intend to publish their work in JAMA?
Dr. Livingston：The most important advice that I could give to Chinese investigators is to get to know us. So, as I mentioned earlier, many of us have come to China to try to get to know people and understand them. The senior leadership of JAMA all work full time for the journal. We spend a lot of time trying to get to know investigators so we know what they are doing. So the most important step will be to get to know us. Having been invited here, by the people here in Wuhan, it is an important step forward: We will get to know them. I was very happy to see there are 6 people that Ihave seen before in other meetings while talking here in China. There are many people who are genuinely interested in China and want to get to know us. So I think that would be the most important thing that could do, is finding ways to get to know us and show us what you are doing. Then we can give advice regarding how to do your studies and getting a sense for the chances of getting published.
Correspondent：Is there any part of the summit that makes a deep impression on you?
Dr. Livingston：Well, there are several things. One, there are a lot of people here who all seem to be very interested. When I give a talk, I look at how many people are paying attention. I was speaking in English, this was a Chinese audience, but many of people seemed to be paying attention. I think people here are genuinely interested in what I had to say, and that was good.
The other is that there are several investigators who went to medical school here, and migrated to United States and set up labs or companies in the US. They are very interested in coming back and trying to help develop the research communities here in Wuhan. I thought that was quite good. I think that shows dedication. I think that is very important because those people know how we do things and can bring the message back. My experience in talking to Chinese investigators is that they really do not understand our system. They do not understand how to publish in our journal. They need people who have worked in the US to come back and teach this to Chinese investigators. |
