Jeffrey M. Drazen, MD

Editors from two of medicine’s most respected journals—the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)—will share their insights during two ATS International Conference forums.

Jeffrey M. Drazen, MD, NEJM editor-in-chief, and Howard Bauchner, MD, JAMA editor-in-chief, will moderate today’s forum, which will focus on pulmonary medicine. Dr. Drazen will moderate the Monday forum, which will highlight critical care, with Phil B. Fontanarosa, MD, MBA, JAMA executive editor. In all, the forums will include 12 oral presentations by the authors, many of whom will present research that will be published to coincide with the presentations. Both will take place from 8:15 to 10:45 a.m. in Rooms 3000-3002-3004, West Building (Level 2), Moscone Center.

Derek C. Angus, MD, MPH

Dr. Drazen and Derek C. Angus, MD, MPH, JAMA contributing editor for care of the critically ill, developed the programs.

“Jeff and I think the ATS is an incredibly important professional society that safeguards much of the science and clinical practice of pulmonary and critical medicine. This is a major meeting, it has a big spot on our calendars, and we’re happy that ATS wants to bring the authors of some of our papers to the meeting to present their work,” said Dr. Angus, professor and chair of critical care medicine and director of the Clinical Research, Investigation, and Systems Modeling of Acute Illnesses Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

Many ATS members may be interested in attending both forums.

“We’re hopeful that all the papers will have relevance to their practices, whether they are engaged in critical care or pulmonary practice,” Dr. Angus said.

While the journals receive thousands of submissions each year, together they have a 4.5 percent acceptance rate and publish about 400 research papers.

“We’re going to select papers for the forums that we think are most important and relevant to the pulmonary and critical care community,” said Dr. Drazen, distinguished Parker B. Francis professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, professor of physiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and a senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Each of the 12 speakers will give a short research presentation, which will be followed by analysis by one of the moderators. They will discuss the questions they posed to the authors and the importance of the papers.

For example, Dr. Drazen said, papers may be published because they provide the best explanation of a concern, help resolve a problem or examine a controversial issue.

“These will be papers specifically about pulmonary and critical care, but an important criterion for publication in JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine is that they are of sufficient import to the entire medical community,” Dr. Angus said.

Dr. Drazen encourages attendees to come prepared to ask questions of the moderators.

“We want them to come, listen and hear what was on the editor’s mind,” Dr. Drazen said. “I hope there will be some brisk discussion from the floor.”