The Peer Review Process in Asia

Self Cite

Medicine as a field is unique in the sense that the skill to relate to people weighs heavier on the doctor than the skill required to practise it. Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field that considers issues of health in the context of history, philosophy, social studies, and anthropology among others, enabling students to change their practice from “looking” to “seeing” the patient as a whole. Unfortunately, current medical training is focused on academics with students left on their own to acquire communication and ancillary skills. In the core medical curriculum, a structured training in medical humanities remains lacking. Herein, we discuss the need, student’s perspectives, and the approach going forward in the inculcation of medical humanities in the medical training with a particular focus on medical ethics.

Section: Current Medical Education: Is It Moving Away From Medical Humanities?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Humanities and Its Role in Shaping Ethics in Medical Graduates

Mehta

Ahmed

2021

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“…Things have changed in the last decade with reviewers getting credit for their work on online platforms such as Publons [3]. The peer reviewers from Asia have been discussed previously [4,5]. Academia and researchers from Central Asia are taking a stride forward [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peering, Viewing and Reviewing: What Makes a Peer Review Good

Ahmed

2022

Self Cite

Peer review is an integral part of an ethical scientific publication process. Though not perfect, it has not been replaceable in the last couple of centuries since the advent of scientific journals. Recent innovations include online anonymized credits for peer review that can be used to augment an academician’s resume. Submissions and retraction are ever growing, increasing the demands from peer reviewers. The rewards may not seem commensurate but any person of science should contribute to peer review as a guardian of science. This short review looks at the ideal peer review along with inherent challenges. It makes suggestions on how novice and intermediate reviewers can improve their contributions as well as introduces various resources relevant for peer review.

“…An assessment of articles in predatory journals indicated that a considerable portion of the articles was sourced from researchers in Asia and Africa with low experience, and non-native English speakers [10]. The education systems of most Asian countries place limited emphasis on research methods and insufficient focus on the process of producing and publishing a scientific paper [11]. From this perspective, the focus is on Kazakhstan, one of the Central Asian countries, and the following main points are investigated:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Retracted Publications From Kazakhstan

Koçyiğit

Akyol

2022

Introduction: Retraction is a mechanism to prevent the dissemination of erroneous, misleading, or biased data and information. Various factors can cause retraction. In this article, we focused on Kazakhstan data and aimed to present an analysis of retracted publications from Kazakhstan. Methods: Data for this descriptive cross-sectional article were obtained from the 'Retraction Watch’ database without time restriction. Among the country selections, 'Kazakhstan,' 'Tajikistan,' 'Uzbekistan,' 'Kyrgyzstan,' and 'Turkmenistan' were chosen, and the number of retracted articles was recorded. For detailed analysis, Kazakhstan data were focused on and further analyses were performed on Kazakhstan data. Article title, authors, time interval (in days) from publication to retraction, date of retraction, source of publication, subject area of publication, publication type, and retraction reason were recorded in an Excel file. Results: The number of retracted publications was detected as 64 from Kazakhstan, 49 from Tajikistan, 17 from Uzbekistan, 12 from Kyrgyzstan, and 1 from Turkmenistan. Kazakhstan data were as follows: The median time interval between publication date and retraction date was 475 (46 - 2074) days. Retraction reasons were listed as: Plagiarism (n = 22), peer review issues (n = 21), duplication (n = 11), author disagreements and conflict (n = 5), error (n = 5), fraud (n = 2), ethical issues ( n = 1), publication issues (n = 1), and unknown (n = 1). The three areas with the most retracted articles were engineering (n = 22), education (n = 21), and technology (n = 12). Conclusion: Kazakhstan was first among the five Central Asian countries in terms of the number of retracted publications. Plagiarism, peer review issues, and duplication were at the forefront of the retraction reasons. There is a need for approaches to increase the knowledge of researchers in Kazakhstan about the retraction reasons and ethical research conditions.