The growth of a new era in research and academics in ISA

The betterment of mankind is possible if we earnestly make efforts to refine the existing lacunae, shortcomings, and lesser implicit facts in medicine. The main path is to focus on novel research with an emphasis on current challenges, thereby transforming them into research questions enabling smaller solutions each time. With the accumulation of such novelties, one may arrive at a landmark innovation and/or solution in due course of time with compounding of the pragmatic results.^[1] For the dissemination of all such facts and knowledge, one always needs a robust platform so as to make one’s research visible to a larger reader database. The idea is to kickstart a chain reaction of brainstorming sessions to bring more innovative minds to work conscientiously and painstakingly on this research platform. The answer to all these activities lies in the expansion of existing scientific platforms or the commencement of newer, largely visible research platforms. The journal of Practical Evidence in Anaesthesia Knowledge (PEAK) is one such effort by the Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists (ISA) National under the aegis of the College of Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists (CISA) to give a larger opportunity base for scientific publication to the Indian anaesthesiologists. The attempts to keep research activities in a dynamic phase are the combined responsibility of all authors, peer reviewers, analysts, statisticians, and editors. Research will remain at the backhand and die a spontaneous attritional death if not given an appropriate space for publishing.

The language barrier is a major limitation for scientific publication, as English is not our primary language. Many a time, scientific opinions and terminology could not be brought to the fore because of this major limitation. Moreover, many feel diffident even to write despite doing good clinical work, as hesitation and inertia dominate their writing skills. Few others still think that the right juncture and time are already over for them and it is not worth trying for. The right kind of communication and motivation during research methodology workshops is an unambiguous answer to these short challenges. One such endeavour by ISA is to work upon the clinical module exclusively for the private practitioners, which will soon be published as a fine clinical handbook for our practitioners, especially those working in the periphery. This module, besides helping in day-to-day clinical work, will go a long way in boosting the research and publication activities in our nation, as a good number of clinical loads are taken by private practitioners and the peripheral hospitals.^[2] PEAK is in synchrony with this clinical module for private practitioners and will provide a definite platform for their interesting research outputs, including case reports.

The incapability of many authors to go beyond certain skill levels of writing is another limiting factor which eclipses the real profundity of research, and the message is not aptly delivered to the larger reader database. This has been deliberated at the editorial board of PEAK, and few methods have been developed to showcase these research studies by collaborating with the authors to bring out the best-published manuscript. The policies of the PEAK editorial board in overcoming these barriers are very innovative in creating ample opportunities and setting the stage for conveying the good research work across the nation.

The ISA, which is increasing day by day in membership annually at a rate greater than 7–8%, will require larger and more numerous publication platforms for the academic research to be published. The further diversification of the anaesthesia speciality into numerous super and subspecialities has created the need for more publication avenues. It is akin to widening of the national highways catering to the ever-increasing population and congested traffic.

Research should always be intentional and treasured, and one may end up with below-average results if it is forcible and obligatory and done by coercion or compulsion for the various job and promotional avenues, as has been mandated by the national medical governing body.^[3,4] These norms and protocols have created a very competitive atmosphere, which, on the downside, augmented by such necessities, has given birth to the growth of predatory journalism in the medical field. There always looms a threat with the escalation of such predatory journalism that the intent of original and robust research will eventually fade along with a drastic change in the attitude of researchers on the downbeat side.^[5] Ultimately, the genuine vision and goals of research activities that aim at improving the healthcare norms and decreasing the morbidities will be defeated. Also, the publishing of the research work should be judicious so that the message should be delivered at the right time rather than getting it to become obsolete and attritional with time.

PEAK is an endeavour which will go a long way in assisting and achieving the aims mentioned above and will prove a support to our already established and internationally acclaimed Indian Journal of Anaesthesia (IJA). The success of PEAK will further fuel the birth of more publication avenues, which will probably be an integral part of CISA. Apart from that, CISA itself aims at refining research and guidelines and thereby providing symbiotic growth of PEAK.

As Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of this prestigious journal, I endeavour to bring out the best research ideas of our fraternity across the nation and help them to go one step further in establishing their authorship vocation in anaesthesiology. The dedication, commitment, and the passion of the EIC and the editorial team in research and academics will definitely give a boost to the PEAK and will go a long way in providing a healthy research atmosphere across the nation in anaesthesiology.

Social media and outreach have abolished many research barriers, and the visibility of global research has also increased.^[6,7] PEAK is an effort to get appreciation for your sound research work at a universal level and thereby motivate fellow colleagues in ISA to strive more in the research academics.

Enthusiasm is one of the key ingredients in research activities, and who can be better than the dedicated young anaesthesiologists who can keep the flag of ISA and anaesthesiology flying high in the years to come. The academic performance of young anaesthesiologists in our country has been impressive in recent times. The onus will now be on the editorial board of PEAK to extract the best of the academic and research potential of these young, talented researchers.

The editorial board of PEAK is going to take up the responsibility in a gigantic way to bring out the best research activities in our nation and project them to international and national readers alike. It will be a big support to IJA, which has already done wonderfully well over the last decade, in enhancing the academic and research credentials of our nation. The editorial board will play an important role in improving the research atmosphere of the nation. Few newer policies have been framed at PEAK to help the Indian authors from all aspects of publishing, including the technicalities, methodology, language, grammatical aspects, and many more, provided the authors also equally cooperate in this endeavour. The experience, knowledge, skills, and potential of each editor will be utilised to augment the quality of publishable manuscripts by editing in a paramount and promising way. PEAK aims to ensure the contentment of each author who submits their hard-done research work in the best possible manner without compromising the quality of the journal.

Furthermore, PEAK is supported by the efficient publishing team of ‘Scientific Scholar,’ which caters to the needs of authors and reviewers and has a robust online manuscript management system that will help in the timely and quality publication of the issues.

The goal of achieving a blissful team of hard-working editors, careful peer reviewers, enthusiastic authors, and cooperative publishers putting in their best for PEAK seems to be more important at the moment. Indexing and impact factors will automatically follow. The seeds of hard and intelligent work now sown for PEAK will certainly reap the fruits of success in the years to come.