Deputy editor, BMJ and Editor in chief, BMJ Open (qualifications MBBS, MRCPsych)
I have worked at the BMJ (British Medical Journal, bmj.com) for more than 20 years. I am one of six deputy editors and am also senior research editor. I lead the BMJ team that peer reviews and publishes original research articles, and also lead our international outreach programme, with key responsibility for helping researchers to maximise their chances of publication and for encouraging authors to send the BMJ their research. I write and maintain the BMJ’s editorial policies and instructions to authors, and have co-developed the BMJ’s regular workshops on peer review training.
On behalf of the BMJ I have been a member of several research-related organisations and groups: the council of the Committee on Publication Ethics (2008-10), the CONSORT 2010 group on reporting randomised controlled trials, and the SPIRIT group on reporting trial protocols. I am also participating in strategic efforts to encourage the sharing of raw research data, to develop prognosis research methods, to revise the EU clinical trials directive, and to improve the practice of grant review.
I helped to develop BMJ Open - the online-only open access general medical journal launched by BMJ Group in early 2011 (bmjopen.bmj.com) – and am its Editor in chief. BMJ Open is dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas and considers all research study types, from study protocols to phase I trials to meta-analyses, including small or potentially low-impact studies.
Before joining the BMJ I trained in medicine at London’s Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine and then specialised in psychiatry, gaining MRCPsych in 1989. In 1998 I was an honorary research fellow at the School for Public Policy, University College London.
I have presented programmes and series for BBC World Service radio, presented TVam’s Doc Spot, co-authored the HarperCollins Consumer Guide to Mental Health (winner of the Medical Journalists' Association best book of 1995), and edited the BMJ book Countdown to Community Care (1993).
Competing Interests
Have you in the past five years accepted the following from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of papers in the BMJ?
In line with the BMJ’s policy, I have accepted necessary and reasonable paid-for travel, meals, daily subsistence costs, and accommodation from meeting organisers only when the organisation is a not-for-profit one.
Reimbursement for attending a symposium?
No
A fee for speaking?
No
A fee for organising education?
No
Funds for research?
No
Funds for a member of staff?
No
Fees for consulting?
No
Have you in the past five years been employed by any organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of papers in the BMJ?
No
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation?
No stocks or shares, though I belong to the BMA pension fund and do not know what they invest in.
Do you have any other competing financial interests?
No
I have no competing interests/I have the following competing interests.
I know personally many of the BMJs authors and reviewers, having met them at editorial meetings and at conferences. I try not to let this bias the decisions we make about papers.I have longstanding and academic interests in primary care and psychiatry.
