Dimensions of Crucial Care Nursing is extending a Call for Peer Reviewers. Please share this with your colleagues, community partners, research collaborators, clinical partners, students, or others who might be interested.
Peer review is the evaluation and critical appraisal of written work by subject matter experts. It serves as quality assurance for scientific, academic, and professional work-ensuring that it is accurate, relevant for the journal audience, significant to the discipline and represents all types of scholarly inquiry with appropriate methods.
At Dimensions of Crucial Care Nursing, our work targets four dimensions of care: Clinical, Educational, Research, and Leadership. Submitted manuscripts include original research, quality improvement, systematic reviews, practice updates, case studies, educational innovations, leadership exemplars, and evidence-based practice applications. The scope of this work represents both local and international perspectives. This impressive body of work requires peer review and expert consultation from our professional colleagues. Clinicians, educators, administrative leaders, advance practice nurses, and professionals from all disciplines, such as pharmacology, physical therapy, and respiratory specialties, are welcome to join our peer-review team.
Peer review is often defined as the essence of science. The process helps us find truth in science. It allows one to reflect on someone else's work and provide thoughtful comments, share expertise, and ask questions that will encourage clarity and clinical application of the scholarly work.
Our authors agree that peer review always makes the manuscript stronger. Our reviewer comments often serve to guide a more focused approach to revision. Moreover, this work helps our editorial staff remain attentive to our readers, while encouraging authors to personalize the application of their work to address the needs of critical and acute care nurses.
The benefits of peer review extend to the reviewers themselves, as reviewers report that the experience allows them to reflect more deeply on their own practice and research. Ultimately, it helps tone individual writing skills and contributes to the reviewers' own research and professional writing. As reviewers hold authors to ethical and academic standards, they polish skills that may be applied to their own work.
This work does take time, but the commitment often results in extraordinary professional growth. This time-consuming work is necessary to ensure that scientific discoveries in nursing and at an interdisciplinary level significantly enhance our knowledge. Peer review also promotes a culture of research integrity.
To be constructive, this process requires a high level of rigor, objectiveness, and transparency from both the authors and reviewers. As an author, I welcome the unbiased criticisms of my peers. As a reviewer, I feel that it is a privilege to have the opportunity to provide feedback on others' findings. I do so with honesty and a great sense of respect for the hard work of my peers, hoping that my suggestions will always be perceived positively.
After a reviewer submits a review, he/she is looped into the editor's decision and receives comments made by other peer reviewers assigned to the manuscript. By comparing comments with those of others, reviewers can assess their own performance and see the manuscript from a different vantage point. The combination of questions, comments, and suggestions of 2 to 3 anonymous reviewers inform the editor and author in many ways, each with a unique perspective. Participating in the peer-review process may help you learn to critically appraise scientific evidence, enhance your professional development, and improve research skills, as you also contribute to the advancement of knowledge.
As a peer reviewer, you will receive continuing education units and credits toward certification, advanced practice, and clinical ladder programs. In addition, this work should be added to your curriculum vitae and resume to illustrate your professional commitment to scholarly inquiry and publication.
To join our team, please contact me directly. We provide orientation materials and mentorship direct you to online course work and other resources as you begin this important work with us.