Science relies on the objective assessment of new findings, and nowhere is that more important than in the review of manuscripts. Readers of JGIM and other journals have the right to expect the review process to be fair and free of bias. JGIM published a 2022 Concise Research Report on the association between institutional affiliations of the academic editors and authors in their journals.1 We do not know whether JGIM was one of the journals included in this analysis and, if so, where we sit on the continuum.

First, a quick review of editorial decision-making at JGIM under our leadership. All manuscripts are sent to the editor in chief on call for a given week. We make an initial decision whether to reject without any other review, pass those that we deem worthy of further review on to one of our  > 70 associate editors, or sometimes manage the manuscript ourselves. Palladino et al. focused on editorial board members; at JGIM, we request input on occasion from editorial board members on specific manuscripts, but they see very few manuscripts in the review process.

We decided early in our tenure that we would pass submissions from our own institutions to a fellow editor in chief. This is a luxury that most journal editors do not have, as co-editorship is an unusual model. With such a large pool of associate editors, it is relatively easy for us to find an editor from an institution not represented in the author pool for an individual manuscript. Our editors of course have collaborations that are not fully known to us, and we ask them to decline to manage a manuscript whenever there is a conflict that we missed. In addition to not managing manuscripts from their own institution, we also ask that our editors not review manuscripts from mentors or mentees or authors with whom we have previously written a manuscript or worked on research. We ask each editor to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest and recuse themselves from any such manuscript. We invite our associate editors to contact one of the chief editors if they are concerned about a possible conflict to discuss whether the potential conflict rises to a level that might impair their objectivity.

There are several reasons why we have strict rules for the potential real and perceived influences upon outcome:

1.

We may bring our prior experiences, both positive and negative, to work done by those that we know well. This may color our reading of an individual manuscript—potentially in either direction.

2.

Others involved in the peer review process have no way of knowing whether someone is known to us or not—but might worry about that influence.

3.

We might have conscious or unconscious motivation to enhance promotion of those at our institution or those we know.

4.

Authors may be more inclined to request and editors may be more inclined to grant appeals of a rejection.

5.

We may fear negative repercussions on interpersonal or professional relationships if rejecting a manuscript from a colleague or friend.

There are of course other conflicts of interest that are more difficult to categorize. Many of our manuscripts come from members of the Society of General Internal Medicine who have been well known to all of us for many years. Some manuscripts come from our own editorial team members writ large. We strictly remove those authors from any conversations regarding manuscript outcome, treating them as any other author through our Editorial Manager portal. Guidance on this topic comes from COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics.2

While you should not be denied the ability to publish in your own journal, you must take extra precautions not to exploit your position or to create an impression of impropriety. Your journal must have a procedure for handling submissions from editors or members of the editorial board that will ensure that the peer review is handled independently of the author/editor. We also recommend that you describe the process in a commentary or similar note once the paper is published.

As peer reviewers, we are all asked to check whether we are conflicted in performing a review. We ask that our reviewers follow this same paradigm and draw the line as we have done. We, of course, welcome your feedback on this and other issues. Finally, if you are a reader and/or author of JGIM and you are not already registered to do peer review, please consider signing up at https://www.editorialmanager.com/jgim/default2.aspx. The scientific community depends on reviewers like you for the kind of objective reviews we all require. It is a great learning opportunity, and yes, we dare say it, really fun.