E-ISSN 2367-699X | ISSN 2367-7414
 

Conflict of Interest Policy



International Journal of Surgery and Medicine requires that all authors, peer reviewers and editors disclose all potential conflicts of interests.

Authors

All authors are required to complete the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. It is important to complete this accurately. If you do not declare a conflict of interest and you are subsequently found to have one your paper will lose credibility. Conversely, full disclosure of conflict of interest does not prevent a paper from being published but does allow you to be open with your readers.

Peer Reviewers 

All peer reviewers are asked to declare any conflict of interests upon acceptance to review a paper. Peer reviewers may not undertake a review on a manuscript if they are unable to do so objectively.

Editors

The Editor-in-Chief of IJSM is bound by the same conflict of interest principles as authors. Editors-in-Chief must declare any financial and/or personal conflict of interest for each submitted manuscript, and decisions on manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest will be made by another editor. The Editor-in-Chief is sent conflict of interest forms for every author on the paper he/she is reviewing. To preserve editorial integrity and eliminate bias, the Editor-in-Chief is not aware of the fee structure for any of the papers he/she reviews. Editorial decisions for manuscripts commissioned or solicited by the Editor-in-Chief will not be made by that Editor-in-Chief. Where the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member submits a paper to their Journal, the policy is that another Editor on that journal is responsible for making the editorial decision (in accordance with section 9 of the COPE Ethical Editing guide, see also COPE case number 05-22 "Editor as author in own journal"). In this case we would also require a minimum of three sets of independent peer-review comments.

The authors should consider the following questions when completing their competing interest declaration:
Financial competing interests
In the past three years have they received any funding from an organization that may have a financial interest in the manuscript?

Do they hold any stock holdings or options in an organization that may have financial interest in the publication of this manuscript?

Does the content of the manuscript relate to any patents they hold or are they currently applying for?

Have they received any funding or salary from an organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?

Do they have any other financial competing interests?

Non-financial competing interests
Are there any non-financial competing interests to declare in relation to the manuscript? Examples of non-financial competing interests include family associations, political, religious, academic or any other.

If the authors are unsure as to whether they, or one their co-authors, has a competing interest, they should discuss this with the editor.

International Journal of Surgery and Medicine subscribes to the general intent of the principles adopted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on the control of data in publications arising from sponsored research. The author submitting a manuscript for any study funded by an organization with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome shall have access to all the data in that study, and to have complete responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the data, and the decision to publish.