To learn and to share: Hepatobiliary, Pancreatic Surgery and Manuscript Writing Symposium

There is tremendous discrepancy between the clinical experience in Non-English Speaking countries and its ability to relate that experience to the rest of the scientific world via peer-reviewed manuscripts in the English-speaking world. One of the areas in which that gulf is most evident is in hepatobiliary and pancreatic disease. There is a significant amount of basic and clinical research and education surrounding such areas, but because of a lack of sophistication in writing, these efforts are not recognized.

During September 18^th-19^th 2014, the “Hepatobiliary, Pancreatic Surgery and Manuscript Writing Symposium” jointly held by University of Chicago Department of Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital and the journal Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition and Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, took place in Beijing, China. Professors Jeffrey Matthews, Michael Millis and Yilei Mao were three organizers for the symposium (Figures 1,2).

Figure 1 Professor Yixin Zeng, President of Peking Union Medical College, addressed the opening remarks for the conference.

Figure 2 Professors Yilei Mao (A), Jeffrey Matthews (B), and Michael Millis (C), three organizers of the symposium in the conference.

The conference features talks from editors, reviewers, and experienced authors of English journals such as Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, American Journal of Surgery, American Journal of Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition etc. They discussed the keys that optimize potential publication in leading English scientific journals. Topics of the Writers Workshop included general advice for scientific writing, how to write an abstract, tips for what makes for a well-written manuscript, plagiarism/duplicate publication and other forms of misconduct, and how to respond to critiques.

Ethical issues have always been of great importance in publications. In the conference, Professor Timothy Pawlik from Johns Hopkins Hospital gave a keynote speech on Ethics and Scientific Publications, followed by case presentations of ethical breaches by Professor Millis. While President of AME publishing company Dao-Yuan Wang shared with us his experience of establishing an international multicenter clinical database: the ARCH Projects (Figure 3).

Figure 3 (A) Professor Pawlik was making a remote presentation from US for attendees in China; (B) Mr. Daoyuan Wang was sharing the experience of establishing the ARCH projects.

The symposium also focused on the field of hepatobiliary and pancreatic disease highlighting basic and clinical research. In the Pancreatic Diseases section, Professor Jeffrey B. Matthews, Chairman in the Department of Surgery University of Chicago Medicine, presented an informative speech on Auto Islet Transplantation, following the surgical options for advanced Pancreatic Cancer presented by Eugene Choi, Assistant Professor of Surgery from University of Chicago Medicine. When it came to the Prevention of Liver Diseases section, Professor Xiang-Dong Wang from Tufts University shared with us his studies on chemo-prevention of HCC development. Mingwei Zhu, Deputy Director from Department of General Surgery in Beijing Hospital showed the recent improvement of parenteral nutrition in surgical patients (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Professors Eugene Choi (A), Xiang-Dong Wang (B) and Mingwei Zhu (C) in the symposium.

In the section of Hepatic Malignancies, Michael D. Kluger, Assistant Professor of Surgery in New York-Presbyterian Hospital gave a talk on the management of colorectal cancer liver metastases. Professor Xin Lu from Peking Union Medical College Hospital shared with the attendees about the surgical treatment of malignant liver tumor with IVC tumor thrombus (IVCTT). Regarding the local problems, Thuong Van Ha, Associate Professor of Radiology in University of Chicago Medicine, stated his understandings about loco-regional treatment for HCC and metastatic tumors. While Kun Wang, Deputy Director of the Department of Hepato-pancreato-biliary Surgery in Beijing Cancer Hospital, emphasized on the surgical perspective beyond the BCLC recommendations for HCC (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Professors Michael D. Kluger (A), Xin Lu (B), Kun Wang (C) and Thuong Van Ha (D) in the conference.

In the Transplantation section, David C. Cronin, Professor of Surgery from Medical College of Wisconsin focused on liver transplantation for HCC: the US and Asian Experience. While Wenshi Jiang, Director in Department of Health Science and Informatics China Organ Transplant Response, introduced the recent progress China has made on the Organ Donation and Allocation. Our special guest Dr. Jahanzeb Effendi from Jinnah Sindh Medical University, helped us learn more about Pakistan, with an overview of the current situation, interventions and solutions to help save lives in this country (Figure 6).

Figure 6 Professor David C. Cronin (A), Ms. Wenshi Jiang (B) and Dr. Jahanzeb Effendi (C) in the meeting.

In the section of “Scientific Writing and Manuscript Acceptance”, Professor Millis pointed out the keys to write with clarity in medicine. Professor Kluger shared with us his understandings of designing clinical trials. While Professor Xiang-Dong Wang, taught a useful lesson to the Chinese authors by sharing the common mistakes made by Chinese authors during the writing of English manuscripts for publications. Prof. Matthews gave us an overview of the peer review process from an insightful perspective. As there are still much to learn in peer review, Professor Eugene Choi, leaked specific tips of how to write a high quality review as a reviewer, while Dr. Cronin shared with us his 89 opinions of how to respond critiques as an author.

This symposium was organized as to share the recent investigation and improvement in the field of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Disease, to make them be utilized to develop critical manuscript evaluation and writing skills. We gave our heartfelt thanks to all the speakers and organizers for their great support and contribution to this conference (Figure 7). Special thanks goes to Professor Hongbing Zhang from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences for chairing the section of Scientific Writing and Manuscript Acceptance.

Figure 7 A picture of most invited speakers.

Acknowledgements

Disclosure: The author declares no conflict of interest.