In 2024, JPHE reviewers continue to make outstanding contributions to the peer review process. They demonstrated professional effort and enthusiasm in their reviews and provided comments that genuinely help the authors to enhance their work.
Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding reviewers, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as a reviewer. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.
January, 2024
Heba Mohtady Ali, Griffith University, Australia
February, 2024
Rebekkah Middleton, University of Wollongong, Australia
January, 2024
Heba Mohtady Ali
Dr. Heba Mohtady Ali, a distinguished medical doctor and senior academic, brings a wealth of experience across various medical and health-related domains. She holds affiliations with Griffith University, Australia, and Zagazig University, Egypt. At Zagazig University, she is an accomplished Medical Microbiology Professor renowned for her expertise in Medical Education, Quality and Accreditation, Antimicrobial resistance and endemic microbial infections. In the past few years, as a PhD scholar pursuing her second doctorate at Griffith University, Dr. Ali has delved into the impact of disasters, particularly pandemic infections, on healthcare systems and professionals, focusing on professional competencies, education, training, and resilience. Her research employs various disciplines and conceptual and theoretical frameworks such as transformational leadership, resilience engineering, total quality management, disaster management, human immunity, and health profession education. This transdisciplinary approach synthesizes existing knowledge to understand disruptions and critical factors influencing hospital disaster resilience. Connect with Dr. Ali on LinkedIn.
A healthy peer-review system, according to Dr. Ali, is characterized by fairness, transparency, and timeliness. She thinks that it ensures impartial evaluation of submissions based on merit, with reviewers providing constructive feedback to authors. Quality control is maintained by selecting qualified reviewers, and confidentiality is upheld throughout the process. Ultimately, such a system promotes the advancement of knowledge by maintaining high standards of integrity while facilitating constructive criticism and feedback.
In Dr. Ali’s opinion, the existing peer-review system has limitations, including biases, inconsistent expertise, lack of transparency, time constraints for busy reviewers, and difficulty finding reviewers for interdisciplinary or innovative research. To improve the situation, we can try to implement double-anonymized reviews, provide reviewer training, adopt open review practices, streamline processes with technology, and foster networks to connect reviewers across disciplines.
“As an academic, I recognise the importance of knowledge dissemination, primarily through journal publications. Therefore, I allocate time for peer review as a voluntary service to academia, aiming to advance science and medicine, support the development of communities, and contribute to the progress of fellow researchers,” says Dr. Ali.
(By Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
February, 2024
Rebekkah Middleton
Associate Professor Rebekkah Middleton works at the University of Wollongong, Australia in the School of Nursing. Her professional background has enabled strong industry relationships that have brought research collaboration and opportunity to mentor and grow healthcare professionals. Her research hinges around person-centred practice, which underpins her key foci of workforce and leadership within healthcare. A/Prof. Middleton is director of a postgraduate master’s program in healthcare leadership and teaches in this space. Connect with her on X @bekkmiddle.
A/Prof. Middleton thinks that peer review ensures a rigorous process of research has been undertaken and minimises bias. The peer-review process ensures quality papers are published that have had objective critique to ensure the work is clear and rigorous, and meets certain standards and guidelines.
To make sure the review is objective, A/Prof. Middleton points out that reviewers should be blinded so that they are unable to be biased by any relationship or knowledge which may impact the reading of the work.
From a reviewer’s perspective, A/Prof. Middleton indicates that it is very important for authors to follow reporting guidelines as they write to ensure all elements of the research process are considered and reported. This enables reproduction of the research in another context, validation of results and application to other settings. It ensures a robust process of research occurs.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
