Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery (2008) 61, 479e480

EDITORIAL

Book reviews, review of books, reviewsand reviewers

When we undertook the recent readership survey the leastvalued parts of the Journal were the book reviews.Editorials were not valued too highly either so an Editorialabout Book Reviews is a particular challenge. The questionthat needs to be addressed is how to make Book Reviewsmore valued, more useful, more relevant. The process ofreviewing books for this journal is that a book publisher willapproach the Journal publishing team at Elsevier and offerto send books for review. These books are then sent to theJournal editorial team to be sent to a selected reviewer.The review guidelines are vague and that is perhaps part ofthe problem with variability of reviews. For the review ofpapers we have a check list and then a free text componentfor confidential comments to the Editor and comments tothe author. The responsibility of the journal paper re-viewers is primarily to the journal. They are providing anessential service of control and selection to maintainstandards. There are a number of responses that thereviewer of a paper will make, with justified rejection atone end of the spectrum to an unqualified acceptance atthe other. The journal paper reviewers can be particularlyhelpful when identifying a potentially good paper andgiving constructive advice to the author on how to improveit. I mention this to give contrast to the reviewer of books.

The book review is very different from a paper review.The review is a personal opinion that is identifiable. Howare the reviewers chosen? Are they experts in the field? Arethey potential users of the book in question? Are theyenthusiastic reviewers? We are hearing more and moreabout conflict of interest issues in scientific journals1 and itis only to be expected that the publication of book reviewsin Medical Journals should be questioned in similar terms.2

Most medical journals are published by large publishingconcerns that also publish books. As an Elsevier journal isit a conflict of interest for us to publish reviews of Elsevierbooks? There are multiple layers to the answer of this typeof question and some where in the middle of the layers willbe the measured response, ‘Well it all depends..’ Dependson what? The independence of the review? The potentialbias of the reviewer? The choice of reviewer?

1748-6815/$ - see front matter ª 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf ofdoi:10.1016/j.bjps.2008.03.012

We came back to who reviews the books. This issomething our book review editor will have to consider.There must be a clear declaration of freedom of conflict ofinterest. No ‘back-handers’ from authors or publisherswould be acceptable!. Another point is that book reviewsare edited but not subject to peer review. At least not priorto publication. Personally I would like to see more feedbackabout the reviews. Those of you who book hotels via theInternet might well be familiar with the website, www.tripadvisor.com. This gives unbiased reviews of hotels byvisitors but the reviews themselves are open to ‘review’.Readers can say whether they found the review helpful ornot. They can comment on the reviews and also compli-ment the reviewer. This makes the whole process moredynamic, more alive, more meaningful and would, if imple-mented, add value to any review, and in this context,journal book reviews.

What is the purpose of the book review? Who readsthem? Well Medical Librarians do and before the dawningage of the Internet much was written about the relevanceof reviews.3 It is quite instructive to read the series of fivepapers written in response to budgetary restraints and staffshortages in the library system and the place of book re-views in determining new purchases.4 The papers lookedat such issues as the time lag between publication ofa book and the publication of the review.5 The duplicationand consistency of reviews in leading medical journals wasdescribed in part III of this series of papers.6 Parts IV and Vlooked at the major publishers represented in the reviewsand the books most often reviewed.7,8 These papers areall available on line via open access and make interestingreading although they date from over a quarter of a centuryago!. The point being that the integrity and authority of thereview had to be accepted as it was going to influence theallocation of scarce resources. But such integrity is beingquestioned nowadays. Are reviews biased?9 Are they wor-thy?10 And greater transparency is needed.11 The Editorialby Brian Millar in the Journal of Clinical Nursing12 mustecho the sentiments of many Journal and Book ReviewEditors. I liked his Editorial for the forthright honesty

British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons.

480 A. Burd

displayed. The acknowledgement that it is a challenge tocreate a good panel of book reviewers; the reluctance tobe prescriptive in the ‘How to’ of writing a review. His focusis on the balanced guidance of the potential reader to theeducational value of the book. There is another aspect ofbook reviews and this comes back to one of the integral as-pects of the paper review process. The book review can beconstructively critical. The reality is that there are bookswhich do not fulfill their potential and how are the authorsand publishers going to know that.

In truth the most avid readers of book reviews are theauthors of the books and, one would assume, theirpublishers. So the reviewer has an opportunity to influencethe crafting of future editions. As part of this Editorial I wasgoing to include a review of a book that has landed on mydesk but as it is published by Elsevier I shall include it onanother occasion. I do not want to give the impression thatwe mix our ‘eds’ and our ‘ads’.13 Mr Henk Giele, one of ourDeputy Editors, from Oxford, England, UK is going tostreamline the process of book reviews for JPRAS. Youwill see more reviews in the journal and reviews that will,we hope, find increasing value in our readers’ opinions.Whilst researching the literature for this short editorial Ican across one citation that I have not been able to trackdown. This was a paper entitled ‘Some musings on review-ing medical books’.14 What attracted me to this citationwas the name of the author ‘Bean W B’. I do wonderwhat these ‘musings’ were and whether they would havehad an resemblance to the rather irreverent style of hiscontemporary namesake who has established an interna-tional following.

Moving onto ‘Reviews’, I am delighted to draw yourattention to four excellent review papers published in thisissue of the journal. They reflect the broad spectrum of thechallenges of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic surgery.The evolution of composite tissue allotransplantation isdescribed in a well referenced and comprehensive overviewthat also includes a very useful glossary of terminology. Thereview of gigantomastia puts into dramatic perspective thepotential ‘cruelty’ of nature in creating massive anddebilitating breast enlargement that requires radical surgi-cal management. Technical aspects of surgical practice andapplication are reviewed in the very detailed and timelyupdate on flap pre-conditioning strategies. Finally, in tunewith the current drive towards looking at the effects ofintervention and not just the mechanisms of intervention,an outcome assessment of psychological screening ofpatients seeking cosmetic surgery.

The photograph on the front cover comes from thepaper by Sun et al.15 Two beautiful little girls who hadpresented as a full term female gastrothoracopagus twinswith a common umbilical cord and placenta. Paradoxicallywhat is perhaps remarkable about this picture, of the sep-arated twins, is that it is not remarkable. The paper wasreviewed by the world’s foremost expert in separatingconjoined twins. The review began by saying that all as-pects of conjoined twins from genetics, epidemiology,separation and outcome are well described in the interna-tional literature. It was noted that this was only the 7thsuccessful case reported from China and comments were

made to focus on particular aspects of management thatgave value to the paper which we are now delighted topublish. The particular points of value are the details ofexpansion, placement of expanders and rate of inflationand use of rotational flaps in skin closure. The use of Med-por is also not widely described.

So to summarize; there will be more book reviews andwe hope these will be an additional source of comment anddebate. Review articles are highly valued and submissionsare strongly encouraged. Finally, this journal would notexist without the panel of reviewers. Every paper publishedhas been through the process of peer review and the vastmajority have been enhanced by the constructive com-ments of our reviewers. My deepest appreciation goes to allwho play a part in this process.

References

1. Ancker JS, Flanagin A. A comparison of conflict of interest pol-icies at peer-reviewed journals in different scientific disci-plines. Sci Eng Ethics 2007;13:147e57.

2. Davis RM, Neale AV, Monsur JC. Medical journals’ conflicts ofinterest in the publication of book reviews. Sci Eng Ethics2003;9:471e83.

3. Morton PY. Medical book reviewing. Bull Med Libr Assoc 1983;71:202e6.

4. Chen CC, Wright AM. Current status of biomedical book review-ing: Part I. Key biomedical reviewing journals with quantitativesignificance. Bull Med Libr Assoc 1974;62:105e12.

5. Chen CC. Current status of biomedical book reviewing: Part II.Time lag in biomedical book reviewing. Bull Med Libr Assoc1974;62:113e9.

6. Chen CC. Current status of biomedical book reviewing: Part III.Duplication patterns in biomedical book reviewing. Bull MedLibr Assoc 1974;62:296e301.

7. Chen CC. Current status of biomedical book reviewing: Part IV.Major American and British biomedical book publishers. BullMed Libr Assoc 1974;62:302e7.

8. Chen CC. Current status of biomedical book reviewing: Part V.Most frequently reviewed biomedical books in 1970. Bull MedLibr Assoc 1974;62:309e13.

9. Schwartz HJ. Blased book review. Am J Psychiatry 1997;154:888.

10. Ackerman AB. Are book reviews in medical journals worthy? AmJ Dermatopathol 1986;8:461.

11. Feldmann BM. Questions JAVMA’s method of reviewing books.J Am Vet Med Assoc 2004;224:360.

12. Millar B. Book reviews e keeping up to date in the era of theinformation superhighway. J Clin Nurs 1999;8:485e6.

13. Giles J. Journals lack explicit policies for separating eds formads. Nature 2005;434:549. doi:10.1038/434549a.

14. Bean WB. Some musings on reviewing medical books. AMA ArchIntern Med 1956;97:497e501.

15. Sun J, Zhang Y, Ruan Q, et al. Gains from the separation of twocases of conjoined twins. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2008;61:552556.

Andrew BurdEditor, JPRAS

Hong KongE-mail address: andrewburd@surgery.cuhk.edu.hk