General Evaluation Considerations
ACS Case Reviews in Surgery will publish educational materials in various surgical specialties. To be eligible for peer review, all submissions must meet at least one of the following requirements:
- Describes a topic of interest or important education value to practicing surgeons
- Describes experiences that may not be routinely seen or that were uniquely treated
- Involves patients with common surgical problems where the clinical presentation and/or challenges of management produced knowledge and insights that have significant educational value
Submissions will be reviewed with the understanding that they have not been published by and are not under consideration at any other publication venue.
Please note: Medical students and residents are encouraged to submit to ACS Case Reviews; however, to do so, a practicing surgeon or attending surgeon must be included as one of the authors.
How to Evaluate Manuscripts
There are three primary steps in evaluating manuscripts for ACS Case Reviews:
- Prepare for your evaluation (please see the below guide)
- Evaluate your assigned manuscripts: reviewers are asked to carefully examine and evaluate the assigned case report manuscript based on several criteria, including the overall worthiness of the submission for publication, strict adherence to ACS Case Reviews author instructions as well as SCARE guidelines, and the paper's strict adherence to patient-related ethical considerations.
- Recommend whether the reviewed submission is worthy of publication. Reviewer recommendations for publication are based on the reviewers' careful examination and evaluation of the case report manuscript.
Guidance on Preparing for Your Evaluation
Prior to beginning your review online, please review the following questions to ensure that there are no barriers or conflicts in completing your assignments (you will be required to respond to these questions online). If there are concerns, or if you need assistance, please contact casereviews@facs.org at your earliest convenience.
- Does the submission match your area of expertise? Please only accept this invitation to review if you feel you can provide a high-quality evaluation.
- Do you have a potential conflict of interest?
- Have you reviewed the SCARE checklist for the construction of a case report for this review?
- Have you reviewed the ACS Case Reviews author instructions?
- Does the case report include all required categories: abstract, case description, discussion, conclusion, lessons learned, references?
The ACS and the ACS Case Reviews Editorial Team sincerely thanks you for your time and energy in supporting its mission to improve patient outcomes.
