In 2022, many ACR authors make outstanding contributions to our journal. Their articles published with us have received very well feedback in the field and stimulate a lot of discussions and new insights among the peers.
Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding authors who have been making immense efforts in their research fields, with a brief interview of their unique perspective and insightful view as authors.
Outstanding Authors (2022)
Ramapaada Medam, University of Central Florida, USA
Jeffrey B. Velotta, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), USA
Basel Abdelazeem, McLaren Health Care Hospital, USA
Hitoshi Hirose, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, USA
Peter Ahorukomeye, Case Western Reserve University, USA
Michael G. Foss, Kansas City University, USA
Phillip G. Brennan, University of California, San Francisco, USA
Outstanding Author
Ramapaada R. Medam
Ramapaada Medam is currently in his final year of medical school at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, USA. He is interested in pursuing a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation after graduating from medical school. His research projects throughout his undergraduate studies and medical school include the optimization of type II collagen expression high-throughput drug screening and robotic automation for cartilage health in arthritic diseases, therapeutic applications of intrabodies and single chain fragment variables to Alzheimer's disease, osteobiologic applications to fracture management, and various case reports in the disciplines of physiatry, surgery, and endocrinology. He has a wide range of interests and an ambition to continuously improve his research skills to provide the best care for his future patients. He has self-studied the automation of wet-lab robots, scientific writing, and a wide range of discipline specific knowledge beyond his medical school's requirements. You may connect with Ramapaada on Twitter @Ram_Med1.
Academic publications are essential for disseminating acquired knowledge in a specific discipline. To Ramapaada, pushing the boundaries of these disciplines is vital for the continuous improvement in the development of new treatment plans and further research directions in order to improve overall health and quality in life for all.
In Ramapaada’s opinion, the key skill sets of an author include being able to find and answer questions that will have a significant positive impact in the well-being of others, understanding conflicting viewpoints when reviewing the literature and synthesizing the evidence to form an unbiased opinion, and being able to succinctly convey well-organized thoughts to the target audience.
Furthermore, Ramapaada believes it is of utmost importance for authors to disclose Conflict of Interest (COI). Revealing COI often increases an author’s cognizance of potential bias introduction, resulting in a more thorough and diligent interpretation and analysis of study results.
“My motivation to be involved in academic writing stems from the desire to add to humanity’s collective database of knowledge. Each time a well thought out study or case report is published, there is more data available out there for physicians to make decisions to improve patient care. There are many times after morning rounds that I want to learn more about a specific rare case and can understand relevant management ideas better thanks to online case reports. Adding to this data bank will eventually uncover previously undiscovered patterns in the disease course allowing physician-scientists to identify diseases earlier, improve management, and identify new areas to be further researched,” says Ramapaada.
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)
Jeffrey B. Velotta
Dr. Jeffrey B. Velotta is a thoracic surgeon practicing at Kaiser Permanente Northern California and is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, USA. His clinical interests involve all aspects of thoracic surgery, especially minimally invasive lung and esophageal surgery, image-guided surgical techniques for small lung nodules, and multimodality treatment of mesothelioma. His role entails teaching and training UCSF medical students and surgery residents throughout the course of the year. He is interested in surgical quality research pertaining to outcomes in minimally invasive surgeries for lung and esophageal cancer. He currently has ongoing studies pertaining to novel ways to provide better pain relief after thoracic surgery, multimodality treatment of mesothelioma, and the incidence and outcomes for never-smokers with lung cancer. You may follow Dr. Velotta on Twitter @JVelottaMD for more info.
A well-written paper, according to Dr. Velotta, should be written concisely and tell the take-home point and message. Apart from this, another key piece is that the paper should be relatively novel and that there is not much other published research on that particular topic.
Academic writing often involves evidence synthesis. On selecting appropriate evidence for analysis, Dr. Velotta believes that authors should see what is most relevant, as well as practice changing now or in the future. Once they find out what is clinically relevant or novel, then they can continue to synthesize that in their results.
Besides, Dr. Velotta emphasizes the need to disclose Conflict of Interest in any form of research, especially if the report/publication is on a non-FDA approved device that the authors are portraying in a positive light but may have financial interest in that company. Those studies should be more scrutinized in terms of validity.
“Academic writing allows you to inform the medical and lay population as well as really dive into what is out in the current literature on these topics so it adds to our education as well,” says Dr. Velotta.
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)
Basel Abdelazeem
Dr. Basel Abdelazeem is an internal medicine resident at McLaren Health Care Hospital in Flint, Michigan, USA. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, and took his degree in Medicine from Ain Shams University, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt. He has chosen internal medicine as his professional orientation and currently serves as the chief resident for the academic year 2022-2023. His research interests include systematic review and meta-analysis, case reports, and analysis of different databases. He is leading international teams to do research focusing on cardiology, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, and structural heart disease. He collaborates with authors from all over the world, including Egypt, the USA, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, Germany, India, China, and others. He welcomes collaboration with international teams. You may connect with Dr. Abdelazeem on Twitter @basel_elramly.
To Dr. Abdelazeem, there are some challenges and difficulties that authors may face in academic writing. One of them is a weak thesis statement or the main selling point for the papers. He believes that each published article should add a piece of new innovative information to the current literature to improve patient care. Other common obstacles are grammar, punctuation, and text structure. Even for the native English speaker, this point will require multiple revisions of the articles from all the authors before submission.
Dr. Abdelazeem further says that authors should always keep in mind why they want to publish this paper, make sure first that this paper will be publishable and in what format, whether it will be a full article, letter or communication, review paper, or just an abstract to a conference. Asking a senior author during this step is vital. Furthermore, authors should keep in mind the journal requirement during the preparation of the paper. He highly recommends all authors carefully check the author guideline on the journal's main page. One may consider a pre-submission inquiry to the journal if he/she is unsure if the paper falls within the scope of the journal.
Furthermore, Dr. Abdelazeem highly encourages authors to apply and get institutional review board (IRB) approval before conducting their primary research. IRB will help authors to determine the risk and benefits of research before starting it; meanwhile, they will be able to protect the participants. Without IRB, the participants may face coercion and be very vulnerable during the process.
“I remember how hard for me to get my first article accepted and published in a journal. I spend a lot of time learning every step in the process, from getting the idea and validation to getting the acceptance email from the journal. Finally, when I published my first paper after multiple rejections from different journals, I had those mixed emotions of happiness and victory and being so proud. Since then, I have never stopped doing research, and the process is getting easier. I feel more comfortable dealing with any journal, even if top-notch journal. The moral of the story is always to remember the iceberg theory of success; always remember that you have to invest a lot of effort and work until you can achieve your goals,” says Dr. Abdelazeem.
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)
Hitoshi Hirose
Dr. Hitoshi Hirose, MD, PhD, is a cardiovascular surgeon who currently works as a Director of ECMO/Shock program at Virtua Health, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, USA. He has primary interest in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and cardiogenic shock. You may get to know more about Dr. Hirose through here.
As an experienced researcher in his field, Dr. Hirose tries to involve his students and co-workers to help him with the study. The person who helps him the most will become the first author and he himself will be a corresponding and senior author. Previously (last 10 years), he had 4 students/residents who received award from their national/international presentations and even a few had TV interviewed.
Here are some tips from Dr. Hirose to young researchers: “If you are interested in and if you think a work is reportable, talk to your mentor first and then present at local meeting to see the response. If you get good comments at local meeting, the work may be worth publishing.”
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)
Peter Ahorukomeye
Peter Ahorukomeye is currently a 4th year medical student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He is also an orthopaedic spine research fellow at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. His focus has mostly been around degenerative conditions of the spine. You may connect with Peter via Twitter @PeteAhorukomeye.
To Peter, academic writing is perhaps the most important aspect in science. Researchers not only have the responsibility to uphold scientific integrity in all their work, but also have a responsibility to communicate their findings. Communication within the scientific community as well as with the community at large is critically important. The most compelling findings, with implications that could impact the entire world, could be diluted by a lack of proper communication within the scientific community. This is why scientific writing is arguably the most important part of the scientific process.
The amount of scientific literature put out today is higher than at any other point in history. This trend is only going to continue as more and more works of varying implications get published. To ensure that his writing is up-to-date, Peter believes it is important to keep up with the literature not only in his own field, but also in other fields. This is why he retains subscriptions to journals with high and low impact factors in multiple orthopaedic surgery, neurosurgery and general medicine.
Its seems that there are new guidelines that one must adhere to every other day. Guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts, such as STROBE, TREND and PRISMA, are important in Peter’s opinion because they standardize the communication of the scientific findings. This makes the science easier to communicate and easier to consume. Not only that, the use of these guidelines also almost guarantees a level of scientific rigor.
“Academic writing does require a lot of time and effort. Like any researcher, my greatest motivator to continue to sharpen my scientific writing is the need to effectively communicate my work with the rest of the scientific community and indeed the entire world,” says Peter.
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)
Michael G. Foss
Dr. Michael G. Foss is a senior dermatology resident affiliated with Kansas City University GME consortium/Advanced Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery, based in Orlando, Florida, USA. His clinical interests include dermatologic surgery, cutaneous oncology, and Mohs micrographic surgery. His recent research focuses have centered on outcomes of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma complicated by lymphovascular invasion treated via Mohs surgery. He is also interested in incorporating tumor genomics into the management of cutaneous malignancies.
Academic writing, according to Dr. Foss, is crucial for the advancement of medicine and challenging the status quo. It is important for authors to disseminate new information, so that our understanding of medicine continues to evolve for the benefit of patients.
Speaking of the key skill sets of an author, Dr. Foss states that such skills include the ability to synthesize new theories from existing data, concisely summarize current understanding of a topic, and disseminate information in a logical and reproducible manner.
On the other hand, in Dr. Foss’ opinion, disclosure of conflicts of interest is extremely important so that readers can ascertain any bias that may influence the conclusions of a paper. Results can be overstated, when an author has reason to benefit, especially monetarily, from the publication of the research in question.
“A major motivator for me to do academic writing is to share my experiences with management of unusual cases, so that other physicians have a reference if they were to come across something similar in their practice. It is also very exciting to be involved with shaping the future of medicine via academic writing, as much progress in our field is made via sharing of information between individuals and institutions through academic publications,” says Dr. Foss.
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)
Phillip G. Brennan
Dr. Phillip G. Brennan currently serves at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) - East Bay, Oakland, USA. He was born in Mobile, AL and grew up moving throughout the United States. He had a deep interest in golf which led to playing collegiate golf at Troy University during his undergraduate years. After Troy University, he was able to further other interests in science and medicine by attending the University of South Alabama for medical school. He drew quickly to general surgery and chose his dreams of becoming a surgeon through general surgery residency at UCSF - East Bay. Dr. Brennan is interested in a career in vascular surgery, and is currently in his research years through the Harvard Longwood Research Fellowship in Vascular Surgery Program. He finds it exciting studying the role of A20 and A-20 like molecules in modifying the response to vascular injury or graft creation and how gene therapies and medications enhance vascular remodeling after bypass graft creation.
To Dr. Brennan, one of the most commonly encountered difficulties in academic writing is describing the methods and findings of one’s research in a complete yet concise fashion. Being able to describe one’s research in detail while communicating the key findings in an easily digestible manner often results in more dramatic, impactful, and reproducible research.
According to Dr. Brennan, there are a few things authors have to bear in mind during preparation of a paper. First of all, authors should seek to describe a problem or question and provide a solution or answer to each. Also, they should prepare to give appropriate context on the background of a problem, and explain why answering the stated question is meaningful and impactful.
As an author, Dr. Brennan stresses that it is important for a research study to apply for institutional review board (IRB) approval to ensure one’s project respects the rights and welfare of human subjects and serve as external validation for readers in this regard. If this step is omitted, it raises question if the study remained within compliance of patient’s rights and welfare throughout the study, and may potentially invalidate the integrity of the study’s findings.
(By Brad Li, Eunice X. Xu)