The impact of resident involvement and postgraduate year on head and neck surgery for obstructive sleep apnea

Mihai A. Bentan; Elizabeth Mastoloni; Lawrance Lee; Ryan Nord

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0317381

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 23, 2024
4 Oct 2024 Decision Letter - Alessandro Cannavo, Editor Transfer Alert This paper was transferred from another journal. As a result, its full editorial history (including decision letters, peer reviews and author responses) may not be present. PONE-D-24-20350The impact of resident involvement and postgraduate year on head and neck surgery for obstructive sleep apneaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bentan, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 18 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? 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Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Really appreciate the work of all authors on the manuscript. In my opinion, the results inside may help surgeons clarify whether resident involvement induces higher rate of sleep surgical events postoperatively. Personal consideration as below could make this manusciript more comprehensive: Authors advocated some opinions, trying to address the analyzed result that increased incidence of readmission occurred in the resident group. Based on personal experience, readmission after upper airway surgery was usually attributed to postoperative bleeding that required emergent check bleeding or closely observation. But even in such cases, blood transfusion was not a routine procedure unless critical vital sign or extremely low Hgb level. In the manuscript, only the parameter "Blood transfusion within 72 hours" was included. Hence, the surgical complication about postoperative bleeding that required readmission might be partially ignored. So...is it available to introduce the event of postoperative bleeding that requires check bleeding or closely monitor as a factor, to compare the surgical complication rate between residents and attending group ? If not, please add the description in Discussion or limitation paragraph, to illustrate "Blood transfusion within 72 hours" is used to represent the complication of postoperative bleeding rather than other parameters, for example, the event of check bleeding surgery. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). 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Revision 1
19 Nov 2024 Author Response Dear Editors and Reviewers, Thank you for inviting our team to submit a revised draft of our manuscript entitled, “The impact of resident involvement and postgraduate year on head and neck surgery for obstructive sleep apnea” (PONE-D-24-20350) to PLOS ONE. We appreciate the effort and time that the reviewers dedicated in providing their insight and helpful feedback. We agree that this extra effort further strengthens our manuscript. We have incorporated the suggestions from the incite that was provided by the reviewers. We anticipate that the edits and responses that we have shared below addresses the concerns and recommendations you and the reviewers have provided. To aid in the facilitation of your review of the revisions, the following is a point-by-point response to the questions and comments delivered in your revision letter. To facilitate readthrough, we have separated each question/comment using the header COMMENT and then replied to each comment via the header RESPONSE. Thank you once again for your time and consideration. COMMENT: We note that your "Manuscript and Cover Letter" files are duplicated on your submission. Please remove any unnecessary or old files from your revision, and make sure that only those relevant to the current version of the manuscript are included. RESPONSE: All unnecessary / old files have been removed from the submission. Only the current versions of the manuscript and cover letter have been included. We apologize for any confusion caused by this action. COMMENT: We understand that you have updated your data availability statement to read as follows: "The data is part of the ACS-NSQIP PUF database maintained by the American College of Surgeons. The data is available free of charge from the American College of Surgeons for members of hospitals participating in the NSQIP. Data access queries for non-members can be directed to the Corresponding Author, Mihai Bentan (bentanm@vcu.edu). Public disposition of this data would breach the Data Use Agreement (and therefore copyright laws) as imposed by the American College of Surgeons, as detailed in the Participant Use Data File ‘Access to Chapter 4’ section: “Chapter 4 (for both Essential and Procedure Targeted data) contains proprietary ACS NSQIP programmatic information. Your use of Chapter 4 is restricted to clarifying definitions for your PUF-based research purposes. The contents of Chapter 4 shall not be shared, quoted, distributed, or disseminated in any published papers, reports, manuscripts, etc. Limited paraphrasing of Chapter 4 definitions, to provide methodological clarity in research publications, is permissible. Any use or redistribution of Chapter 4 for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.” Therefore, given these copyright laws, we are unable to provide the data underlying our finals in any of the aforementioned methods (a-c) so as to avoid violating copyright laws. However, individuals/readers interested seeking permission to use the data may follow contact the ACS who will process a request, as detailed in the following: “Permission to use and disclose the PUF is granted from the ACS NSQIP to each Data Recipient. The Data Recipient must be an employee of the participating Hospital. Intentional misrepresentation of employment at the Hospital by the Data Recipient will void this Agreement, prohibit use of the PUF by the Data Recipient, and result in legal action taken by the ACS NSQIP. The ACS NSQIP also reserves the right to deny access to the PUF at its discretion.” Further information regarding all of this information can be found at the following link: https://www.facs.org/media/ezaj2g5p/datauseagreementacsnsqippuf.pdf The data is owned by a third-part institution (ACS NSQIP) and therefore they cannot be shared by any of the authors of this study. The following URL: https://www.facs.org/quality-programs/data-and-registries/pediatric/participant-use-data-file/participant-use-request-form/ should be utilized to identify the appropriate non-author contact for the location/state in which the requesting individual resides. Other individuals are able to access this data in the same manner that these authors have. We report that these authors did not have any specific access privileges that others would not have had." However, this statement does not provide non-author contact information for requesting these data. Please include a non-author email address in this statement. RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The following non-author email address, acsnsqip@facs.org, may be utilized for data requests. This information has been added to the data availability statement, which now reads as follows: The data is part of the ACS-NSQIP PUF database maintained by the American College of Surgeons. The data is available free of charge from the American College of Surgeons for members of hospitals participating in the NSQIP. Data access queries for non-members can be directed to the Corresponding Author, Mihai Bentan (bentanm@vcu.edu). Public disposition of this data would breach the Data Use Agreement (and therefore copyright laws) as imposed by the American College of Surgeons, as detailed in the Participant Use Data File ‘Access to Chapter 4’ section: “Chapter 4 (for both Essential and Procedure Targeted data) contains proprietary ACS NSQIP programmatic information. Your use of Chapter 4 is restricted to clarifying definitions for your PUF-based research purposes. The contents of Chapter 4 shall not be shared, quoted, distributed, or disseminated in any published papers, reports, manuscripts, etc. Limited paraphrasing of Chapter 4 definitions, to provide methodological clarity in research publications, is permissible. Any use or redistribution of Chapter 4 for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited.” Therefore, given these copyright laws, we are unable to provide the data underlying our finals in any of the aforementioned methods (a-c) so as to avoid violating copyright laws. However, individuals/readers interested seeking permission to use the data may follow contact the ACS who will process a request, as detailed in the following: “Permission to use and disclose the PUF is granted from the ACS NSQIP to each Data Recipient. The Data Recipient must be an employee of the participating Hospital. Intentional misrepresentation of employment at the Hospital by the Data Recipient will void this Agreement, prohibit use of the PUF by the Data Recipient, and result in legal action taken by the ACS NSQIP. The ACS NSQIP also reserves the right to deny access to the PUF at its discretion.” Further information regarding all of this information can be found at the following link: https://www.facs.org/media/ezaj2g5p/datauseagreementacsnsqippuf.pdf The data is owned by a third-part institution (ACS NSQIP) and therefore they cannot be shared by any of the authors of this study. The following URL: https://www.facs.org/quality-programs/data-and-registries/pediatric/participant-use-data-file/participant-use-request-form/ should be utilized to identify the appropriate non-author contact for the location/state in which the requesting individual resides. Other individuals are able to access this data in the same manner that these authors have. We report that these authors did not have any specific access privileges that others would not have had. Data requests may be performed using the aforementioned URL link or via the following email address: acsnsqip@facs.org. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response To Reviewers_4thRound.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317381.r002
27 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Alessandro Cannavo, Editor The impact of resident involvement and postgraduate year on head and neck surgery for obstructive sleep apnea PONE-D-24-20350R1 Dear Dr. Bentan, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Alessandro Cannavo Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Thank you for the work on the revised manuscript. The description concerning postoperative hemorrhage not fully captured was added. I have no other comments. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317381.r003
Formally Accepted
2 Jan 2025 Acceptance Letter - Alessandro Cannavo, Editor PONE-D-24-20350R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bentan, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Alessandro Cannavo Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317381.r004

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