Editor-in-Chief
Clayton Hess, MD, MPH — Founder, CureRays Radiation Medicine®; Director, CureRays Innovation & Education Institute.
The Editor-in-Chief is accountable for the scientific standard of the journal, for appointing editors and reviewers, and for every editorial decision except those from which he is recused. He is recused from any manuscript he has authored, and from any manuscript submitted by CureRays staff or by the Institute — those go to an independent editor outside CureRays, as set out in the Peer Review Policy.
The roles we are seating
These positions are open and we are actively recruiting to them. We would rather name them here with their duties written down than announce a board and work out the job afterwards.
Independent Editor (external)
Handles every submission from CureRays, the Institute, or the Editor-in-Chief — selecting reviewers and issuing the decision without internal visibility. Requires no CureRays affiliation, past or present. This is the most important appointment on this page.
Associate Editors
Handle manuscripts within a domain: radiation oncology, cardio-oncology, medical physics and dosimetry, epidemiology and outcomes, survivorship and supportive care. Assign reviewers, weigh conflicting reports, and write the decision letter.
Statistical Editor
Reviews the analysis of any manuscript where the design or the inference warrants it — competing risks, time-to-event methods, multiplicity, prediction models. Empowered to require reanalysis before a paper proceeds.
Ethics Editor
Advises on consent, identifiability, trial registration, and any allegation of misconduct, applying the COPE flowcharts named in our published policy.
Patient Editor
Reviews survivorship and surveillance manuscripts from the position of the person the research is about — whether the outcomes measured are the ones patients care about, and whether the plain-language summary is honest. A standing seat, not a consultation.
Managing Editor
Runs the process rather than the science: acknowledgements, the editorial screen, similarity checking, chasing reviewers, proofs, and the published status of every manuscript in the pipeline.
Terms of service
What we ask, and what we commit to in return. These are published so that anyone considering a seat knows the arrangement before they accept it.
- A three-year renewable term. Long enough to build judgement about the journal, short enough that the board does not calcify.
- Editors are compensated, as reviewers are. Editorial work is skilled labour and this journal does not extract skilled labour for free.
- Published conflicts. Every editor's declaration is public, updated annually, and any editor may be asked to recuse by any other.
- Editorial independence in writing. No editor may be removed, and no term left unrenewed, on the grounds of a decision that went against the publisher's interest. An editor who believes that has happened may say so publicly, and we will not contest their right to.
- Editors may publish in CRMSSS — excluding a working scientist from the journal they help run serves nobody — but only under external handling, with the arrangement disclosed on the article.
- A real workload figure. Associate editors are asked to handle roughly one manuscript a month, and we will tell you before you accept if that estimate changes.
Why the board is being built in public
New journals ordinarily announce a full masthead on day one. Some of those names have agreed to lend their reputation and little else, and the practice is common enough that readers have learned to discount it.
We would rather show the board being assembled: the roles defined, the duties written down, the terms public, and the names added as people actually agree to serve. A reader can then tell the difference between a seat that is filled and one that is not, which is more information than a complete-looking list would have given them.
Until each seat is filled, its duties are carried by the Editor-in-Chief — except for the Independent Editor role, which by definition cannot be, and which is why CRMSSS will not publish any manuscript authored by CureRays or the Institute until an external editor is in place.
Serve on the board
If you work in radiation oncology, cardio-oncology, medical physics, outcomes research, or survivorship care — or you are a patient advocate with experience of long-term follow-up — we would like to hear from you.