Not All Young Journals Are Predatory

I read the article by Hansoti et al. with great interest in which they list “predatory” open access emergency medicine journals.¹ Unfortunately, the authors neglected to mention a major limitation of their study methodology. The process required for a new journal to be included in various recognized medical library indexing services such as PubMed or the Scientific Citation Index is often complex and lengthy, sometimes requiring several years before being included. Thus, lack of inclusion of a journal title within these search engines is not evidence that the journal is illegitimate, since it may be too young to be included. Therefore, I was disappointed to see the journal Clinical and Experimental Emergency Medicine among the list of so-called “predator” journals. Clinical and Experimental Emergency Medicine (CEEM) is non-for-profit, peer reviewed and the official English language journal of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine inaugurated about two year ago. The journal does not charge publication fees and is funded by the Korean Society. The journal has just been included into PubMed. The Korean Society of Emergency Medicine represents hundreds of Korean emergency physicians and is a highly reputable organization. Korean emergency physicians have made significant contributions to the body of emergency medicine and acute care knowledge, some of which have been published in CEEM as well as many other well-established journals. The editorial board of CEEM includes multiple internationally renowned emergency physicians who have joined forces to support the efforts of the Korean Society. CEEM was established as a platform for a large number of Asian emergency physicians to highlight many of the issues unique to this region. In today’s era of emergency medicine globalization and rapid international growth it is important for all of us to come together and support the efforts of national emergency medicine organizations to grow their clinical and academic missions, such as the establishment of new journals like CEEM. Thus, extreme care should be taken before prematurely labeling young yet perfectly legitimate journals as “predators,” especially in our relatively young field of emergency medicine.