As my 4-year term ends, I have reflected on principles that I have learned from editing JFTR and how those principles apply across different professions and disciplines. One of these was brought to my awareness when my co-author (and brother), who is a physician at the University of Michigan, recently shared with me this excerpt from an essay he wrote for incoming medical students:

In relationship-based medicine, the ability to see things from the perspective of patients and families is very important. We need to remember that we doctors have the privilege of having one of the few jobs for which an “average day” can be a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience for someone else. I sometimes think of the response of Joe DiMaggio, the famous baseball player, when he was asked why he played so hard every day, even when a game was well in hand. He said, “Because there might have been somebody in the stands today who'd never seen my play before and might never see me again.” Joe knew that what was an ordinary, even mundane, experience for him might be a once-only experience for the other person and he respected the importance of that individual's expectations.

Here is a clinical example of the same sort of thing: When my daughter, Ellie, was hospitalized in 2011, she had a particularly difficult day that was made much better by the kind attentions of a wonderful nurse. I remember taking that nurse aside, at the end of her shift, and thanking her for all that she did. I said, “I imagine this was a pretty average day for you, the kind where if someone asks how the day was, you'd say ‘just routine, the usual.’ It would never stand out in your memory. But it was anything but routine for us and we will always remember your professionalism and kindness.” And we certainly do remember, gratefully, all these years later. I'm sure many of you have similar memories of medical care provided to you or your family members. And, unfortunately, some of you may have had the opposite experience, in which healthcare professionals just seemed to be going through the motions and your interactions with them were less than ideal. In medicine, we have the privilege—an often-daunting responsibility—of working with patients and families during transformative moments of their lives, moments that are often among the most stressful and consequential that they will ever have. However, routine these days may seem to us, we must recognize that they are exceptional for those we care for. And we owe it to them to do it the right way each time.

What is exciting to me is that his primary point about “relationship-based medicine” also applies to the journal editing and publication processes. As I reflected on his thoughts, I realized that journal editors need to treat their constituencies (primarily authors, but also reviewers and the general readership) in ways that are similar to how physicians should aspire to treat their patients. All of us who are involved in the publication process—and this includes a wide range of roles including authors, reviewers, editors, copy-editors, publishers, editorial assistants, type-setters, and readers—also need to remember that the experience that potential authors have with us may be of great importance to them and, like the DiMaggio example, may be their only interaction with JFTR. Despite the fact that many of us have engaged in one way or another with literally thousands of manuscripts, it is incumbent on each of us involved in the publication process to realize that the professionalism, competence, and compassion that we do or do not display can have a lasting and major impact on those we serve, primarily potential authors who are relatively new to the process. What might be a typical day for us may be an especially noteworthy day for new professionals, such as those who feel that they need this publication to strengthen their chances of obtaining tenure, to be promoted, to enhance their reputation, and/or to increase their chances of obtaining external funding for their research. We must guard against taking shortcuts or being curt, overly critical, not thorough in the provision of feedback, or slow to perform our roles, for even a small breach in our standards can have large and long-term impacts on those affected.

The importance of this principle suggests that it is important to take a moment to reflect on how we might enhance the quality of our fulfillment to our “contracts” to serve authors with dignity and competence. In the interests of doing so, I would like to offer some reflections on how to improve that performance.

First, it would be helpful if editors and reviewers were provided with some training and supervised experience before they begin to serve in their particular professional roles. One example would be to provide written guidelines, followed by discussions and perhaps workshops, regarding how scholars can effectively review journal manuscripts. I have seen some excellent documents written about best practices, but seldom have I seen editors go the next step and use these as a part of a comprehensive effort to generate a trusted pool of able and experienced reviewers.

Second, on a grander scale, I would like to encourage our excessively busy colleagues to do their very best to make commitments, within their tight schedules, to publishing responsibilities. I know that this is asking a great deal, as the vast majority of scholars are doing extraordinary work and manuscript reviewing and editing responsibilities are not generally given as much scholarly credit as are publications and presentations. I have heard manuscript reviewing referred to as an “invisible” contribution, as it tends not to receive much attention on scholarly vitae nor on academics' annual reports. However, one way to justify making such commitments is to remind oneself that productive scholars would not be able to be so successful were it not for other scholars who, by serving as external reviewers, give of their time to make important contributions to the network of scholars in any particular discipline or profession.

As an editor, I have noted that there has been a trend for a progressively smaller percentage of invitations to review manuscripts being accepted. In the first 2 years of my term, almost 65% of our requests to review a manuscript were accepted by the potential reviewers; in the next 2 years; the figure dropped to the mid-50% range; and this year was the first year when fewer than half of the requests were either declined or not responded to. Our guest editors and I have had several situations where we had to ask 16–20 scholars before we could obtain 2 or 3 who accepted the invitation. I am certainly not suggesting that our colleagues are working less hard or less productively than they could or should, but do feel that we may need to consider some systemic strategies to increase this reviewer acceptance percentage. For example, I have long toyed with the idea of paying reviewers a modest fee for reviewing manuscripts as a way of taking a step toward compensating them for their precious time, increasing this acceptance percentage, and likely speeding up the process, but have so far not come up with a way to address both the financial costs involved and the potential unknown effects such a payment might have on the process.

随着我 4 年任期的结束，我反思了我从编辑 JFTR 中学到的原则，以及这些原则如何应用于不同的专业和学科。当我的合著者（和兄弟）是密歇根大学的医生时，我意识到了其中一个问题，他最近与我分享了他为即将入学的医学生写的一篇文章的摘录：

在关系医学中，从患者和家属的角度看问题的能力非常重要。我们需要记住，我们医生有幸从事为数不多的工作之一，对于其他人来说，“平凡的一天”可能是“千载难逢”的经历。我有时会想起著名棒球运动员乔·迪马吉奥 (Joe DiMaggio) 的回答，当他被问到为什么他每天打得如此努力，即使是在比赛进行得很好的时候。他说，“因为今天看台上可能有人以前从未看过我的比赛，也可能再也见不到我了。” 乔知道，对他来说普通的、甚至平凡的经历对另一个人来说可能是一次唯一的经历，他尊重那个人的期望的重要性。

这是同一类事情的一个临床例子：2011 年，当我的女儿艾莉 (Ellie) 住院时，她度过了特别艰难的一天，但在一位出色的护士的悉心照料下，她的日子好多了。我记得在轮班结束时把那个护士拉到一边，感谢她所做的一切。我说，“我想这对你来说是非常普通的一天，如果有人问今天过得怎么样，你会说'只是例行公事，平常。' 它永远不会在你的记忆中脱颖而出。但这对我们来说绝非例行公事，我们将永远记住您的专业精神和善意。” 这么多年后，我们当然记得，感激不尽。我相信你们中的许多人对为您或您的家人提供的医疗服务都有类似的回忆。不幸的是，你们中的一些人可能有相反的经历，其中医疗保健专业人员似乎只是走过场，而您与他们的互动并不理想。在医学领域，我们有幸在患者和家人生命中的变革时刻与他们一起工作，而这些时刻往往是他们所经历过的压力最大、后果最严重的时刻，这也是一项常常令人生畏的责任。然而，这些天对我们来说似乎是例行公事，我们必须认识到它们对于我们所关心的人来说是例外的。我们欠他们每次都以正确的方式去做 这些时刻往往是他们所经历过的最紧张和最重要的时刻。然而，这些天对我们来说似乎是例行公事，我们必须认识到它们对于我们所关心的人来说是例外的。我们欠他们每次都以正确的方式去做 这些时刻往往是他们所经历过的最紧张和最重要的时刻。然而，这些天对我们来说似乎是例行公事，我们必须认识到它们对于我们所关心的人来说是例外的。我们欠他们每次都以正确的方式去做.

令我兴奋的是，他关于“基于关系的医学”的主要观点也适用于期刊编辑和出版过程。当我反思他的想法时，我意识到期刊编辑需要以类似于医生对待患者的方式来对待他们的支持者（主要是作者，但也包括审稿人和普通读者）。我们所有参与出版过程的人——包括作者、审稿人、编辑、文案编辑、出版商、编辑助理、排字员和读者等广泛的角色——也需要记住，经历潜在作者可能对他们非常重要，就像 DiMaggio 的例子一样，可能是他们与JFTR的唯一互动. 尽管我们中的许多人以某种方式参与了数以千计的手稿，但参与出版过程的我们每​​个人都有责任认识到，我们表现或未表现出的专业精神、能力和同情心可以对我们所服务的人产生持久而重大的影响，主要是对这个过程相对较新的潜在作者。对于我们来说可能是典型的一天，对于新的专业人士来说可能是特别值得注意的一天，例如那些认为他们需要本出版物来增加获得终身职位、晋升、提高声誉和/或增加机会的人他们的研究获得外部资金的机会。我们必须谨防走捷径或草率、过分挑剔、不彻底地提供反馈，

这一原则的重要性表明，花点时间思考一下我们如何提高履行“合同”的质量以有尊严和有能力地为作者服务是很重要的。为了这样做，我想就如何提高绩效提出一些思考。

First, it would be helpful if editors and reviewers were provided with some training and supervised experience before they begin to serve in their particular professional roles. One example would be to provide written guidelines, followed by discussions and perhaps workshops, regarding how scholars can effectively review journal manuscripts. I have seen some excellent documents written about best practices, but seldom have I seen editors go the next step and use these as a part of a comprehensive effort to generate a trusted pool of able and experienced reviewers.

其次，在更大的范围内，我想鼓励我们过于忙碌的同事们尽最大努力在他们紧迫的时间里做出出版责任的承诺。我知道这要求很高，因为绝大多数学者都在做非凡的工作，而手稿审阅和编辑职责通常不像出版物和演示文稿那样给予学术信誉。我听说手稿审阅被称为“隐形”贡献，因为它往往不会在学术简历或学术年度报告中受到太多关注。然而，证明做出这种承诺的一种方法是提醒自己，如果没有其他学者作为外部审稿人，多产的学者就不会如此成功，

作为一名编辑，我注意到有一种趋势是接受审稿邀请的比例越来越小。在我任期的头 2 年里，几乎 65% 的稿件审稿请求都被潜在审稿人接受了；在接下来的 2 年内；该数字下降到 50% 的中间范围；今年是第一年只有不到一半的请求被拒绝或未得到答复。我们的客座编辑和我遇到过几种情况，在我们获得 2 或 3 位接受邀请的学者之前，我们不得不询问 16-20 位学者。我当然不是在暗示我们的同事工作不够努力或工作效率低于他们能够或应该的水平，但确实认为我们可能需要考虑一些系统性策略来提高审稿人的接受率。例如，