{"id":32540,"date":"2014-10-16T14:41:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T13:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=32540"},"modified":"2015-06-01T14:55:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T13:55:00","slug":"carolyn-thomas-my-experience-of-patient-peer-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/10\/16\/carolyn-thomas-my-experience-of-patient-peer-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Carolyn Thomas: My experience of patient peer review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"carolyn_thomas\"<\/a>I’ve finally hit the “Submit” button on my patient review of a research paper submitted to The BMJ<\/em>\u2014and\u00a0in time for its deadline. Hurray!<\/p>\n

This is the first project of this type I’ve ever been involved in, and at first blush I wondered if I would have anything at all meaningful to contribute\u2014as a non-scientist who wouldn’t know a Hosmer-Lemeshow test from my left elbow at the best of times.<\/p>\n

Once I started reading the paper, the pressure to come up with something profound seemed to grow exponentially, especially given that The BMJ<\/em> is leading the way among other journals in even considering the inclusion of patient reviewers in this process. I also knew that, unless a patient review is meaningful or useful, why bother? Would my clearly non-professional input be used to explain trashing the entire patient peer review initiative? “We tried patient reviewers, but they just didn’t pan out . . . ”<\/p>\n

And then I decided to carefully re-read The BMJ<\/em>‘s patient reviewer guidelines<\/a>. The first question of the guidelines is:<\/p>\n

“Is this an issue that matters to you, other patients, and carers?”<\/p>\n

I was suddenly able to take a nice deep breath and remind myself that The BMJ<\/em> already has real scientists and healthcare professionals to offer peer review input, so I needn’t lose sleep over methodology minutiae. This first question reminded me as well that the particular focus of the paper I was reviewing\u00a0did matter to me. In fact, I’d already written\u2014from a patient’s perspective\u2014about the very same issues surrounding controversial cardiovascular risk calculators that were discussed in the paper up for review.<\/p>\n

This experience has turned out to be far less stressful than I’d first anticipated, thanks entirely to the helpful patient reviewer guidelines. I appreciate The BMJ<\/em>‘s brave and generous offer to grant patients the opportunity to participate in what matters to us.<\/p>\n

Carolyn Thomas<\/strong> is a heart attack survivor, women’s health activist, and blogger at Heart Sisters<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Competing interests: I declare that I have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and I have no relevant interests to declare.<\/p>\n

Read\u00a0Carolyn Thomas’s previous blog: Why physicians must stop saying: \u201cwe are all patients\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve finally hit the “Submit” button on my patient review of a research paper submitted to The BMJ\u2014and\u00a0in time for its deadline. Hurray! This is the first project of this type I’ve ever been involved in, and at first blush I wondered if I would have anything at all meaningful to contribute\u2014as a non-scientist who […]<\/p>\n

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