Dr. William Blake Rodgers, M.D., practices at Spine Midwest in Jefferson City, Missouri. His surgical practice is predominately dedicated to the treatment of degenerative conditions of the lumbar, cervical, and thoracic spine with a smaller emphasis on neoplastic, deformity, and traumatic conditions. After receiving a bachelors degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University, he graduated from Harvard Medical School. William Blake Rodgers completed a surgical internship and orthopedic residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and trained in spine surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and in pediatric orthopedics at Boston Children's Hospital. He is certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery.Dr. Rodgers has been published in numerous medical journals and has presented papers throughout the United States. He serves as an English translator for the ARGOS Spine News.

The research interest of William Blake Rodgers include Lumbar, Cervical, and Thoracic spine with a smaller emphasis on neoplastic, deformity, and Traumatic conditions.

1. What makes an article top quality? 

Response: As much as anything, it is the simplicity of the query that distinguishes an excellent paper from a very good one. Simply asking a straightforward question, and attempting to answer it, marks a good submission.

2. Do you think that journals determine research trends?

Response: I hope not.

3. What makes a good position paper?

Response: Honesty.Candid assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in the literature on which the paper is based.

4. What are the qualities you look for in an article?

Response: Simplicity and clarity of thought, and the music of the language.

5. Can you give us a broad indication of the types of themes a scientific journal should cover?

Response: The simplest questions are the most important, and the hardest to answer fully.

6. What sorts of research methods and frameworks do you expect people to use, and how will they balance conceptual and applied research?

Response: There can be no argument that rigorous adherence to scientific principles is the surest way to reveal truth but, that having been said, a case series (or even a case report) should be seen as a small candle held aloft in the darkness of ignorance – it may not illuminate the whole world but it does allow us to see a bit beyond ourselves.

7. How would you describe the journal’s mission and editorial objectives to our readers?

Response: Maybe, as I mentioned in the last answer, our journal will answer some queries completely, address other issues in part, and always raise more questions for investigation.

8. If you could be granted dream articles, what would they be on?

Response: The ethics of resource allocation in a time of expanding technological alternatives and decreasing societal reserves.

9. Are there any particular areas which you would like to see, or expect to see, collaborate?

Response: Policy-makers, ethicists, and clinicians.

10. How does the research published percolate through to practitioners?

Response: I cannot speak for anyone but myself but I find that I face a constant struggle to keep abreast of the advances within my field, and, more specifically, the new ideas that fundamentally question my own assumptions. I hope that by continuing to question what I “think” is true, I can slowly discover Truth itself.

11. How can a publisher ensure the authors/readers a rigorous peer review and quality control?

Response: By publishing papers with different methods of addressing similar questions – if by multiple avenues we arrive at the same place, then we have found our way; if many roads lead to different destinations, then we need to review the maps a bit.

12. Your editorial policy is to be eclectic and welcome perspectives from other disciplines and schools. How does this translate into the types of contributions you encourage?

Response: I would love to see more discussion of the ethics of resource allocation – we, as clinicians and scientists, have much to learn from our friends the meta-physicians.

13. What do you see as the merits of journals, as opposed to book series, as a means of scholarly communications?

Response: I think textbooks are an excellent resource for codifying the state of knowledge AT A FIXED POINT IN TIME whereas journals, at their best, rapidly disseminate newer ideas (some completely correct, others less so).

14. How do you differentiate Journal of Spine & Neurosurgery with other journals in the field?

Response: I hope that we offer our readers a timely roster of well-written papers that not only offer data for interpretation, but also pique the curious and inspire the questioning.