‘Two Minds with but a Single Thought …’

‘… two hearts that beat as one’.[1]

This is a brief report by two Editors-in-Chief of cardiovascular surgical journals, summarizing their experiences with manuscript submissions over the last years. M. K. H. was elected as the Editor-in-Chief of The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon (ThCVS), the scientific journal of the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, in 2010. In that same year (2010), F. B. became the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EJCTS) and the Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS), two of the three publication organs of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS).

Frequent personal communications soon revealed that both journals had much in common: from the constant stream of submitted manuscripts, reflecting the flourishing scientific activity in the field of cardiac, thoracic, and vascular surgery around the world, to the rising quality of submissions from the so-called emerging countries. An esteemed group of reviewers do a splendid (unpaid) job in guiding the authors on how to improve their contributions, while members of the editorial board remain a valuable source of feedback and play an essential role in shaping their respective journals. Therefore, overall, both Editors consider their task an extremely rewarding one.

However, because into each life a little rain must fall, both also have to spend some time resolving conflicts, which would not arise if the submitting authors followed the general codes of conduct of good scientific practice. To alert their readers about the most common nuisances and in the hope of potentially discouraging these in the future (the nuisances, not the authors, that is!), the Editors have decided to go public and write this joint editorial.

• References

• 1 Lovell M. Ingomar, the Barbarian: A Play in Five Acts. London: Forgotten Books; 2013. (original work published 1896). Act II, scene 4; translated from: von Münch-Bellinghausen EFJ (aka: Friedrich Halm). Der Sohn der Wildnis. 1842
• 2 Heinemann MK. Double trouble. Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2015; 63 (7) 537
• 3 Haug CJ. Peer-review fraud—hacking the scientific publication process. N Engl J Med 2015; 373 (25) 2393-2395