Is the Peer Reviewed Journal Dead?
Tony Brown, one of LITFL’s great heroes and until recently Editor of Emergency Medicine Australasia, got landed with the topic of ‘Is the Peer Reviewed Journal Dead?’ at smaccGOLD. Tony gives a remarkably insightful talk examining what the purpose of the peer reviewed journal is and what the problems are. I loved listening to this.
His surprising conclusions:
- peer reviewed journals are not there to serve the reader!
- peer review does not work!
- most papers are rubbish!
- medical publishing has been hijacked by Big Pharma!
- publishers restrict access!
He suggests some solutions that may resurrect the peer-reviewed journal:
- publish everything
- publish then filter
- publish articles focused on the reader: education and translation
- do less research, that is higher quality, and taken away from the drug the companies
- publish open access
Here is the audio
To listen to all the smaccGOLD talks as they are released subscribe to the SMACC podcast on iTunes.
Further reading
Here are some recommended links (recommended by me, not necessarily Tony!):
- Dogma and Pseudoaxioms (LITFL CCC)
- Medical Reversal (LITFL CCC)
- Time to publish then filter? (LITFL)
- The Wisdom of Crowd Review (LITFL)
- Pens, Swords and Peer Review (LITFL)
- Ioannidis JP. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005 Aug;2(8):e124.
- Schriger DL, Altman DG. Inadequate post-publication review of medical research. BMJ. 2010 Aug 11;341:c3803.
- Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre (Google Books)
- Richard Smith: Is the pharmaceutical industry like the mafia?
- Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime by Peter Gotzcshe (Google Books)
- The Truth About The Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us by Marcia Angell (Google Books)
- The 25th Anniversary edition of Emergency Medicine Australasia (February 2014)
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.
After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.
He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE. He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.
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