In 2024, many authors make outstanding contributions to our journal. Their articles published with us have received very well feedback in the field and stimulate a lot of discussions and new insights among the peers.

Hereby, we would like to highlight some of our outstanding authors, with a brief interview of their thoughts and insights as authors. Allow us to express our heartfelt gratitude for their tremendous effort and valuable contributions to the scientific process.

Outstanding Authors (2024)

Justine Ko, University of California, San Francisco - Fresno, USA

Outstanding Author

Justine Ko

Justine Ko, MD, MPH, is a fellow in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco - Fresno (UCSF-Fresno). She plans to pursue a career in interventional pulmonology, and her research focuses on procedural techniques used in the diagnosis and staging of lung cancer along with their outcomes. After graduating with a BS in physiological sciences and a minor in Spanish at the University of California, Los Angeles, she attended the Keck School of Medicine of USC, where she received her MD and MPH degrees. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of Southern California.

“The most memorable papers that I have read are often the most straightforward,” says Dr. Ko, who believes a good paper should have a clear outline and simple language to present the material while presenting all the relevant information. She believes the length of the paper does not necessarily reflect the quality of the paper. Details, graphs, or tables included should not detract from the overall message that is being shared. Because bias is implicit, it is important that the papers acknowledge possible biases and share the limitations of their study, no matter how well-designed it may be.

In Dr. Ko’s opinion, the first paper that one writes may be the most challenging because it is an unfamiliar process, but it gets better each time one writes. Collecting information for the introduction section can surprisingly require more effort and time than expected, but it is a good learning opportunity both for the author as well as the reader. Authors would learn a lot of information in the process, and it will serve them in their future projects related to the topic. Here are her tips for new authors, “Keep in mind that not all readers will be familiar with the material or perhaps even the specialty that you are in. Care should be taken to emphasize as simply as possible why the particular topic is important, why it was worth the effort to be studied, and why it should be of interest to the reader.”

(by Brad Li, Alisa Lu)