Publication of results obstructed at present

We have been trying to publish our experience and results of LSA in a peer reviewed journal, which is the usual way to publish medical data.

Unfortunately both The Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England and The Surgeon Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Ireland have rejected the paper - without entering into any discussion.

For those who don't understand the peer-review process, what happens is that when a surgeon, scientist etc writes up some research, they submit it to their chosen journal. The Editor then sends the paper out to an "expert" reviewer or two (sometimes more) who gives their opinion on the paper.

The Editor then decides to accept the paper and publish it, to reject it, or quite often to go back to the author to ask for clarification of some points and suggest certain parts are re-written.

Unfortunately the system is open to quite a lot of criticism - and potential abuse. The reviewer or reviewers are kept secret - so the author never knows whether the "expert" reviewing the paper was truly an expert in that area.

In addition, as medicine and surgery are very competitive, it allows one specialist to suppress the work of a professional "competitor" without any comeback.

As LSA is a new operation, developed and modified at The Whiteley Clinic and - so far - only offered in the developed form at The Whiteley Clinic, our results and experience should be of great scientific interest to doctors and patients alike. Without these results and experiences being published, it is hard for the technique to continue being developed by others, who may well end up making the same mistakes that we overcame early in our work.

Other doctors need to know whether the technique is right for their patients - and patients want to know their results.

We have a very clear aim to keep our work as transparent as possible, making sure that our techniques are the best possible for our patients.

As such we will continue to try to publish our techniques and results, and will tell all of our patients the pros and cons of the procedure as they go through the system.

Unfortunately we cannot publish our results here, as that would prevent us from ever submitting them for publication in a peer reviewed journal where papers have to be original and contain unpublished results.

When we find a journal that understands the development of a new procedure and accepts that we want to publish our experience as a "warts and all" paper - and not just trying to claim perfection, we will let you all know the journal it is published in on this blog.