{"id":27783,"date":"2013-07-17T09:45:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T08:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=27783"},"modified":"2013-07-17T09:45:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T08:45:26","slug":"domhnall-macauley-on-being-an-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2013\/07\/17\/domhnall-macauley-on-being-an-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Domhnall MacAuley: On being an editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Domhnall Macauley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/domhnall.jpg\" width=\"162\" height=\"110\" align=\"left\" \/>Why be a medical editor? Pippa Smart, with whom I run <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pspconsulting.org\/medical-short.shtml\">a course for medical editors<\/a>, asked me recently if she could reproduce something I had written. As a strong advocate of open access\u2014free access and unrestricted reuse\u2014I had no hesitation in saying yes. I wrote this paragraph in 2010 to be included in &#8220;Why should I be an editor&#8221; materials for the Qatar Foundation. See what you think:<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Editing a journal you can change the world. Your editorials may challenge current thinking, your review articles can change current practice, your analysis pieces might fire people&#8217;s curiosity, and imagination, and your research add to the body of knowledge. It is a privilege, a pleasure, but also a responsibility. Few of us have the opportunity to influence the way people think. With a medical journal, you don\u2019t just publish, report, and communicate, you can help doctors make better decisions, improve healthcare for patients, and in your own way, make the world a better place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And, on my walk from the tube station to the <em>BMJ<\/em>, I pass a window at the back of the Wellcome Trust building where there is a large sign that says, \u201cWhat gets us out of bed in the morning? It&#8217;s the thrill of discovering something totally new.\u201d As an editor we may not discover anything new, but we help communicate it\u2014and that can be just as exciting.<\/p>\n<p>Idealist, naive, misguided, or delusional, I still love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Domhnall MacAuley<\/strong> is primary care editor,<em> BMJ.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why be a medical editor? Pippa Smart, with whom I run a course for medical editors, asked me recently if she could reproduce something I had written. As a strong [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2013\/07\/17\/domhnall-macauley-on-being-an-editor\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domhnall-macauley"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Domhnall MacAuley: On being an editor - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2013\/07\/17\/domhnall-macauley-on-being-an-editor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Domhnall MacAuley: On being an editor - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why be a medical editor? 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