Dr. Lemlem Beza, Assistant Professor at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, joined the PREPSS peer reviewer team in November 2023 after completing the peer reviewer training. Dr. Beza obtained her PhD degree from Addis Ababa University as part of a joint doctoral training program between Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and Addis Ababa University. Dr. Beza currently serves as the Department Head of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Nursing and was recently appointed as the Vice Executive Dean for Research and Community Engagement at the College of Health Sciences at Addis Ababa University. 

Dr. Beza’s research centers on cardiovascular disease (CVD) emergencies, with a particular focus on acute coronary syndrome patients and community awareness. Her work includes investigating pre hospital delays, conducting CVD risk assessments, and validating cost-effective screening tools for the Ethiopian population, particularly the non-laboratory Framingham tool at the community level. She is also transitioning to mHealth initiatives and task shifting to empower health extension workers in actively participating in CVD risk assessments using mobile technology. 

Through her research, Dr. Beza supports primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, enabling early detection of risks. She elaborates, “By promoting advocacy and recommending user friendly mobile technology for CVD screening, I strive to enhance community awareness of CVD emergency symptoms, encouraging timely medical assistance. This approach not only aims to reduce complications, morbidity, and mortality but also seeks to improve the overall quality of life within the community.” 

Since joining the PREPSS community as a peer reviewer, Dr. Beza has found the experience immensely valuable. She shares, “I have participated in numerous journal peer reviews and currently serve as an associate editor for the journal PAJEC. The PREPSS training has been invaluable, providing me with the tools to standardize my work and enhance my understanding of essential principles in structuring reviews. I look forward to further knowledge sharing and development opportunities through PREPSS in the future.” 

Dr. Agbeko, a general and vascular surgeon working in Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, in Kumasi Ghana, joined the PREPSS peer reviewer team last fall after participating in the peer reviewer training program. She obtained her medical degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and completed her General Surgical residency with both the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and the West African College of Surgeons. 

Her research interests vary but are primarily focused on palliative care, breast cancer, and vascular surgery. Dr. Agbeko’s current projects in these areas are related to improving end of life communication in emergency departments and developing a mobile app for breast screening to reduce delays in breast cancer presentation and treatment. In addition, she is a part of the NIHR global health group on equitable access to quality health care for injured people in several low or middle income countries: EQUI-INJURY.

While working as a surgeon, she was inspired to pursue a PhD in palliative care for two reasons: a desire to learn how to conduct research and because she saw complementarity between the surgical and palliative care fields, allowing her to make her practice more complete.

Dr. Agbeko elaborates, “Palliative care presents the opportunity to explore issues about my patients beyond just their diagnosis and treatment. The greatest thing about palliative care for me is having the opportunity and capacity to have open and in-depth communication about people’s illness, including all other issues that directly and indirectly influence the illness experience and outcome.” 

As far as her participation with PREPSS she notes, “The PREPSS training for me reinforced having a structured and consistent approach to reviewing manuscripts.” She also finds value in the questions included in the PREPSS peer reviewer evaluation form useful for both peer reviewing and writing her own papers.

Dr. Dumile Gumede, a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at the Durban University of Technology with affiliations to the University of South Africa, has served as a PREPSS peer reviewer for the past two years. Dr. Gumede brings a unique perspective to her work with PREPSS, drawing on her multidisciplinary background and training to approach research on health, health behavior, and health promotion. Her past research, for example, has investigated intergenerational relationships between adolescents and their grandparent caregivers and how these connections have shaped the younger generations’ sexual behaviors and sense of future. She joined the PREPSS peer review team after earning her PhD in Health Promotion from the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa and completing the PREPSS peer reviewer training program.

Dr. Gumede has found PREPSS author resources valuable, and has even used them in her own work; for example, to support her scholarly writing for publication. Additionally, she uses PREPSS tools for peer reviewing manuscripts and shares author support materials with students and colleagues. 

In regards to PREPSS’s mission, Dr. Gumede has shared that: “Volunteering with PREPSS has revealed how much pre-publication support is needed to increase the publications of health researchers from low- and middle-income countries. Often, the work of health researchers from low- and middle-income countries is under represented in international peer-reviewed journals not because they do not have a story to tell or to contribute to scholarly knowledge. There are structural barriers faced by health researchers from low- and middle-income countries in publishing their work and thus need to be nurtured and supported effectively in the same way PREPSSS is doing.”