In 2024, JLPM 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.
December, 2024
Marith van Schrojenstein Lantman, Laboratory Medicine (SKML), The Netherlands
December, 2024
Marith van Schrojenstein Lantman
Marith van Schrojenstein Lantman has obtained a PhD in the area of laboratory diagnostics, focusing on the relationship between measurement uncertainty and clinical decision-making. In routine clinical practice, diagnostic test results are interpreted in light of a clinical question (the intended use), in which the test results are compared to a predefined clinical decision-limit to establish the appropriate clinical conclusion. In order to make that clinical conclusion be ‘right’, both the obtained test result as the used decision limit are vital. By evaluating the impact of uncertainty from the clinical context of the intended use, she aims to contribute to better precision diagnostic utility. She currently works at the Foundation for External Quality Assurance in Laboratory Medicine (SKML) in the Netherlands, where she conducts research and develops new report formats that incorporate this knowledge. Furthermore, she works as a quality assurance pharmacist at Forinchem Pharma, the Netherlands. Learn more about her here.
JLPM: What do reviewers have to bear in mind while reviewing papers?
Dr. Lantman: As a reviewer, you are not just requested to provide feedback, but what implicitly happens is that you are expected to judge the content and quality of the manuscript through different lenses. There is more than one ‘style’ of reviewing, I like to present my suggestions using constructive feedback, and indicate why I think a certain change is needed. This gives agency to the authors to incorporate my concerns in a way that befits them, without them feeling left in the dark or constricted to ‘do as I say’. It’s important to recognize that while you’re judging scientific work, it should not come across as judging the people behind it.
Moreover, I like to remind myself that I am biased as a reviewer. The methodologies I use, terms I prefer and scientific choices I make come with their own rationale, and the authors of the submitted manuscript have a likewise approach but may result in a different set of choices. When I find myself judging the methodology or wording of a paper, I try to find the authors’ rationale behind their choices. I notice, more often than I’d actually want to admit, that my beef with a certain aspect of the paper is defendable. This makes me word the review differently, framing it more like constructive collaborative feedback on why I prefer the way I do things as opposed to shutting other people’s efforts down without considering their merit.
JLPM: Would you like to say a few words to encourage other reviewers who have been devoting themselves to advancing scientific progress behind the scene?
Dr. Lantman: We are here today, in this modern global era, with the full scope of information available inside our pockets. Simultaneously, we are becoming more segregated, consuming often only the information that is in line with our pre-established notions of the world. To be a researcher means to pursue objectivity, to be limitlessly curious in a world that does not promote it and to strive for improvement when complacency is the status quo.
It may not mean much for you to read that I appreciate your efforts, but I do. I feel research and the expansion of our collective cognitive database is what has and will propel us forward as a species and as a collective. To participate in this process is of tremendous importance and deserves applause. There is much yet unknown, waiting to be uncovered. This process goes with ups and downs, and is, like life itself, not a linear line. When you find yourself in negative and inconclusive data, flip the table, and look at it from a different angle. We as humans learn more from our mistakes than our successes, so perhaps in research we could also learn more from our inconclusive data.
When you think of giving up, that’s where the magic happens.
(by Lareina Lim, Brad Li)
