Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WestJEM) and Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine (CPC-EM) Peer Review Policy for Interested Reviewers

All interested reviewers must meet the requirements for the WestJEM and CPC-EM:

• Must be board certified, or eligible, in emergency medicine or pediatric emergency medicine.
• Must have a faculty appointment at a university or affiliated academic institution.
• Have one or more original research publication listed on their CV.
• A brief letter of interest and CV must be emailed to Dr. Mark Langdorf, MD, MHPE at editor@westjem.org.
• The reviewer is expected to review 1-2 papers per month. A quality review commonly takes 1-2 hours to complete.
• The reviewer must respond whether they can complete an assigned review within 2 days, and complete it within 14 days of original request. If, after accepting the review, you are unable to complete the review, you must notify the Editorial Director at editor@westjem.org.
• It is highly recommended that reviewers contact the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) for enrollment into the Emergency Medicine Basic Research Skills (EMBERS) course.

All interested reviewers acknowledge:

• The authors remain confidential and blinded during the review process.
• The reviewer may not disclose any details of the review until after an official decision has been made.
• Reviewer comments and critiques are not published with the manuscript.

Peer Review Policy:

WestJEM and CPC-EM adhere to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publications.¹ All manuscripts submitted to the WestJEM and CPC-EM undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process, whereas the authors and reviewers are blinded from each other’s names or affiliations. Editors are not to disclose the confidentiality of reviewers or authors. Details of the review are not revealed to the authors until review is complete and an official decision on the manuscript is made. Editors, editorial staff and reviewers are not to discuss publicly any authors’ works until publication. Manuscripts sent for review are privileged information and are the sole property of the authors’ until publication, at which time the manuscript is under the creative common license. For more information, click here.

All section editors assign at least 3-5 reviewers to whom the identities of the authors remain anonymous. Reviewers provide thorough feedback on the assigned article and make recommendations to the editors regarding the following:

• Critique of the methodology
• The impact and strength of the article
• Significant limitations that need to be addressed
• Are tables and figures relevant and suitable to the manuscript
• Comments on the clarify, brevity and grammar

The Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors will register the final decision. The reviewer’s identity will remain confidential throughout the peer review process.

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1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication. October 2007. Available at http://www.icmje.org/index.html. Accessed December 17, 2009.

Updated Sept 12, 2016