We're strengthening peer review and streamlining our editorial process!
The Cureus team has been hard at work designing, developing and testing this new process for the past two months and we are confident it will result in higher quality submissions and publications. Here are the details:

1. The Editor Preview step has been removed and articles will now enter peer review directly from Editor Check, eliminating the back-and-forth deferrals prior to peer review.
2. All peer reviewers will be required to complete a short questionnaire before submitting their review.
3. In addition, all articles will require at least one review from a non-author-invited peer reviewer. (Reviewers from our internal reviewer pool will be automatically added when the article is approved for peer review.)
4. Lastly, peer reviews that we perceive to be "rubber stamp" reviews or otherwise lacking in substantive critical feedback will be rejected during Editor Approval. Articles that no longer satisfy peer review requirements after having a review rejected will be returned to peer review.

Please take a moment to read through our Author Guide for a detailed overview of our revamped editorial process and peer review requirements.

Cureus articles in the news
Several Cureus articles published in August have been picked up by other publications. Take a look at our latest newsroom posts for more information!

• Healthcare Professionals, Trauma, and Resilience
• New Mutation That Causes Fabry Disease Found in GLA Gene
• Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Caused by Undiagnosed Systemic Sclerosis
• The Science Behind Mindfulness Meditation

Competition deadline approaching!
There are only a few weeks left to submit your article to the first publishing competition on Strategies to Promote Long-Term Cardiac Implant Site Health.

• Requirements: We are seeking the following: case reports/series, original articles, technical reports and review articles that contribute to deeper understanding of implant site difficulties and sharing of procedural strategies to promote long-term implant site health. Submissions should focus on one or more of the following topics: biologic response to CIED foreign body implants, strategies for achieving long-term predictable outcomes for CIED implant sites, or surgical techniques for CIED implant site management.
   
• Recognition: To ensure your work receives the exposure it deserves, all published articles will be indexed in PubMed Central and distributed to large communities of related medical specialists around the globe.
   
• Awards: Three monetary honorariums will be awarded to the published articles that receive the highest Cureus SIQ (Scholarly Impact Quotient) score: $5,000 USD for 1st place, $2,000 USD for 2nd place, and $1,000 USD for 3rd place. SIQ is Cureus’ unique crowdsourced, post-publication peer-review process, where the community-at-large rates each article’s clinical importance and presentation quality.
   
• Key Dates:
  • Tuesday, September 29 – Submission deadline @ 5:00 pm ET 
  • Tuesday, December 15 – SIQ scoring deadline @ 5:00 pm ET
  • Thursday, December 17 – Winning articles announced

Join the community of clinicians entering the competition today – use the button below to get started.

Don't forget to share the good news and promote your newly published article! Amplify the reach of your research through the power of social media. Make sure to follow and tag Cureus on our social media channels so that we can find and share your work with our community:

• Twitter: @CureusInc 
• Facebook: @CureusInc
• Instagram: @CureusMD
• LinkedIn: Cureus