Reviewing Books and Refereeing Scientific Papers

Abstract

In reviewing articles or books, influential judgments are made about the scientific worth and value of colleagues’ written work. This should be done with a more than adequate background knowledge and a desire to be fair and just. Hippocrates correctly tells us that experience alone is fallacious and any reviewer must also agree that “judgement is difficult.” From the perspective of the journal using referee comments to decide upon the fate of a paper or deciding whether to publish a book review, other criteria must obtain. One hundred years ago the editorial columns of the New York Medical Journal were “controlled by the desire to promote the welfare, honour and advancement of the science of medicine, as viewed from a standpoint looking to the best interests of the profession. Nothing is admitted to its columns that has not some bearing on medicine, or is not possessed of some practical value.” These parameters have probably changed little since 1892 and apply equally to specific surgical disciplines.