Is it worth serving as a one-off reviewer for a journal?

[Yakushima]

Hi all,

I wanted to get some additional opinions on this so I hope you don't mind offering your perspectives.

In short, I received an offer to review an article in a peer-reviewed, PubMed indexed journal. I'm not familiar with the journal but the librarian at my school says it is a legitimate journal, albeit relatively new and low-impact. I'm very familiar with the area of research covered in the review so I feel qualified, but I want to be sure that this is a worthwhile endeavor that would help my career, not harm it. Does anyone have experience with a similar situation? Is this something that I should agree to and list on ERAS when I apply for residency next year?

For what it's worth I'm essentially burned out from research at this point, but I've informally reviewed other people's works so I figured this would be fun.

Cheers.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[cbc86]

Yea it is worth it.

 

[Dr G Oogle]

Why do you think it’s a one off; if a journal asks you to review you usually get added to their list of reviewers (at least in med journals). And yes it’s worth it if you find it enjoyable, from a residency app angle it’s pretty low yield and if you go into PP also low yield unless you’re feeling particularly altruistic about making sure good science is done. In academics being a peer reviewer helps with promotion but journal quality matters

 

[aldol16]

The other consideration is if you can provide expert opinion on the scientific quality of the article. You should be comfortable reviewing the paper at hand for its scientific content as well as its clinical content.

 

[operaman]

I reviewed papers for a small but well known journal in Med school and ended up the first medical student on their editorial board.

It most definitely helped.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Yes. FYI, this is called “ad hoc reviewing” in academia.

 

[Yakushima]

Thank you all for the responses!

Seems like it's not terribly important for the CV but it's something and it sounds fun so I'll give it a shot and see where things go.

The other consideration is if you can provide expert opinion on the scientific quality of the article. You should be comfortable reviewing the paper at hand for its scientific content as well as its clinical content.

I would hesitate to call myself an expert on anything but I feel comfortable with the topic. I was fortunate to spend several years under some great mentors in this exact area.

Yes. FYI, this is called “ad hoc reviewing” in academia.

This is great to know; thank you!

 

[GoSpursGo]

Seems like it's not terribly important for the CV

So caveat, by itself it is not terribly important, but you generally have to do a few of these ad hoc things before you're actually on an editorial board. Which definitely IS a thing on the CV.

 

[Contr0lz]

Yeah it's a great opportunity!