On behalf of the editorial team of the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine (CJEM), I am writing to express our concern over the dismissal of John Hoey as editor-in-chief and Anne Marie Todkill as senior deputy editor of the CMAJ and the apparent conflict between CMA Holdings and the CMAJ with regard to the question of editorial autonomy.
We believe that a journal's editorial board should have independent control over the editorial process and journal content. Lack of editorial independence, or the appearance thereof, profoundly undermines the credibility of a medical journal. Our journal, the CJEM, is published by CMA Media Inc. The journal is currently being reviewed for indexing by the US National Library of Medicine (NLM); hence, these recent developments are of great concern to us. Any perception that the CJEM is published by an organization with apparent ongoing (and high-profile) problems with editorial interference may be an important factor for the NLM indexing committee to consider, one that could compromise the future of our journal.
The ongoing perception that CMAJ editorial independence has been compromised will continue to undermine both the working environment at CMA Media Inc. and the stated mission of the CMA “to serve and unite the physicians of Canada and be the national advocate.” Clearly, this issue is not uniting Canadian physicians.