Peer Review Process

The Guram Tatishvili Bulletin of Georgia Surgery applies a rigorous double-blind peer review process to all submitted manuscripts. Under this model, both the authors and the reviewers remain anonymous to each other throughout the review process.

Review Procedure

• All manuscripts submitted to the journal undergo initial editorial screening to assess compliance with the journal’s scope, formatting requirements, and basic scientific standards. Manuscripts that do not meet these criteria are returned to the authors without external review.

• Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are assigned to a minimum of two independent external reviewers with expertise in the relevant field. Reviewers are selected from outside the authors’ institutions and have no conflict of interest with the submitted work.

• The review period is typically 3–4 weeks. In exceptional cases, this period may be extended at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

• Based on the reviewers’ recommendations, the Editor-in-Chief makes one of the following decisions: Accept; Minor revision; Major revision; Reject.

• Authors are notified of the editorial decision along with the reviewers’ comments. In the case of revision, authors are required to provide a detailed response to each comment.

• Revised manuscripts may be sent back to the original reviewers for re-evaluation.

• The final publication decision rests with the Editor-in-Chief.

Conflict of Interest

Reviewers must declare any potential conflict of interest (personal, financial, or professional) before undertaking a review. Reviewers who identify a conflict of interest must recuse themselves and notify the editorial office immediately. Editorial board members are excluded from reviewing manuscripts submitted by their own research group or institution.

Endogeny Policy

To ensure editorial independence, the proportion of published research articles in which at least one author is a member of the editorial team or editorial board does not exceed 25% in any two consecutive issues. Manuscripts submitted by editorial board members are handled by the Editor-in-Chief and processed under full independent external review, with the submitting member excluded from all editorial decisions regarding that manuscript.

Plagiarism Detection

All manuscripts are screened for plagiarism using dedicated software prior to peer review. Manuscripts with unacceptable levels of similarity to previously published work are returned to the authors or rejected outright, depending on the severity of the overlap.

The journal’s peer review policy is consistent with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.