An expression of gratitude to Medical Education Adaptations reviewers

As COVID-19 infection rates increased around the globe, it became clear very quickly that health professional education would be impacted to a degree never seen before.1 Pandemics have been experienced, but this was worldwide and was shutting down large swathes of the world in an unprecedented manner. In response, educators and education leaders scrambled, in the face of considerable uncertainty, to determine how to maintain education continuity without the ability to convene face to face. As a result, it was necessary to find ways to share insights in support of one another, in support of our trainees, and in support of the patients for whom they are being trained to care. Knowing that it would be years before careful research would allow the field to fully understand how the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted upon the quality of training provided, the professional identity formation of those who were in training, and the extent to which risks (to trainees, practitioners and patients) were realised, we imagined an Adaptations section through which our community could share the lessons they were learning as a result of the transitions they were creating on the fly.2 As 2020 included the 20th anniversary of the initiation of the Really Good Stuff (RGS) section, we had a model that we knew to be effective for sharing educational innovations. As Medical Education is an internationally focused journal with a diverse readership, we had a reach that we knew could ensure wide dissemination of information. As our newly created Accepted Article stream allows for the electronic posting of unformatted manuscripts, we had a mechanism for distributing contributions much faster than is the historical norm for academic periodicals. What we needed was a group of scholars who could commit to the rapid review of an unknown number of submissions despite their own work and personal lives being in states of uncertainty and turmoil similar to those of the people who would be writing for the series. What we found was something we could never have imagined. Perhaps this was not learned as much as reinforced, but we were reminded through this exercise of the dedication, collegiality and insightfulness commonly displayed by members of our field. Editorial internship alumni, editorial board members and friends of the journal were asked if they would be willing to review one manuscript per week to help enable this initiative. That turned out to be a massive (albeit unintentional) bait and switch. In the 5 weeks during which the call for papers was open, we received 318 submissions. Despite efforts to triage for those that were out of scope or redundant, we found ourselves having to ask more than was reasonable from the team of reviewers and we likely edged many to the brink of their goodwill. As the submission rate grew exponentially in a curve that mimicked the COVID-19 infection rate in many countries, these reviewers continued to volunteer their time and expertise in a manner that resulted in an average final turnaround time between submission and first decision of 7.4 days… yes, single digits! Even in circumstances less exceptional than this, it would feel impossible to ever fully convey how much our reviewers are appreciated. They donate their time to offer our authors and readers the gift of their expertise, yet all the memes that circulate about peer review focus on the few unfortunate problems rather than the countless improvements reviewers’ efforts have made to academia’s published works (and, thus, to society’s thinking more generally). We list all those who review for Medical Education in the November and December issues each year; we offer continuing education credits to those who can benefit from them; we also acknowledge a few who go particularly above and beyond the call of duty by announcing Choice Critics Awards every August (see www.mededuc.com). None of these tokens, however, can truly convey reviewers’ value. As a result, we publish this editorial (formatted like an RGS article out of recognition of the special effort made by our Adaptations reviewers) to call upon you, the reader, to hug (virtually at least) those who make our field not only an intellectually stimulating environment, but one in which collegiality and support of one another are truly lived and valued. The Adaptations reviewers were Lulu Alwazzan, Eng Tat Ang, Julian Archer, Beth Bierer, Asli Buyukkurt, Dario Cecilio-Fernandes, Yu-Che Chang, Paul Duggan, Robbert Duvivier, Gabrielle Finn, Larry Gruppen, Stanley Hamstra, Karen Hauer, Wolf Hautz, Tanya Horsley, Jennifer Klasen, Thomas Kropmans, Ann Lee, Janet Lindemann, Matthew Lineberry, Usman Mahboob, Karen Marcdante, Brian Mavis, Fredrick McCurdy, Lynn Monrouxe, Sara Mortaz Hejri, Patricia O’Sullivan, Miguel Paniagua, Helen Reid, Anna Ryan, Elizabeth Ryan, Joan Sargeant, Daniel Schumacher, Terese Stenfors, Joanna Tai, Olle ten Cate, Martin Tolsgaard, Nu Vu, Paul Wallach, Jeffrey Wiseman, Jacqueline Wolvaardt, Ilham Youssry and Muhamad Saiful Bahri Yusoff. At the same time that we acknowledge and celebrate our reviewers, let’s not lose sight of the fact that every article we publish is enabled by those who work behind the scenes and, hence, never receive the credit they deserve. This list includes Wiley staff Sheryl Acorda, Lucy Grant, Emma Jones and Kirsty Smith, all of whom worked beyond their normal remits to speed our workflow in a time of great uncertainty and adjustment. We are eternally grateful to everyone named for all they did to make the Adaptations series a success.