About Us

What is WAME? 

Established in 1995, WAME (pronounced “whammy”) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit voluntary association of editors of peer-reviewed medical journals from countries throughout the world who seek to foster international cooperation among and education of medical journal editors. Membership in WAME is free and all decision-making editors of peer-reviewed medical journals are eligible to join. Membership is also available to selected scholars in journal editorial policy and peer review. WAME has more than 1830 members representing more than 1000 journals from 92 countries (2017 data). See WAME's History. 

WAME has the following goals:

  • to facilitate worldwide cooperation and communication among editors of peer-reviewed medical journals;
  • to improve editorial standards, to promote professionalism in medical editing through education, self-criticism and self-regulation;
  • to encourage research on the principles and practice of medical editing.
WAME's founding members also agreed that members of WAME shall be dedicated to high ethical and scientific principles in the pursuit of the following common goals:
  • to publish original, important, well-documented peer-reviewed articles on clinical and laboratory research;
  • to provide continuing education in basic and clinical sciences to support informed clinical decision making;
  • to enable physicians to remain informed in one or more areas of medicine;
  • to improve public health internationally by improving the quality of medical care, disease prevention and medical research;
  • to foster responsible and balanced debate on controversial issues and policies affecting medicine and health care;
  • to promote peer review as a vehicle for scientific discourse and quality assurance in medicine and to support efforts to improve peer review;
  • to achieve the highest level of ethical medical journalism;
  • to promote self-audit and scientifically supported improvement in the editing process;
  • to produce publications that are timely, credible and enjoyable to read;
  • to forecast important issues, problems and trends in medicine and health care;
  • to inform readers about non-clinical aspects of medicine and public health, including political, philosophic, ethical, environmental, economic, historical and cultural issues;
  • to recognize that, in addition to these specific objectives, a medical journal has a social responsibility to improve the human condition and safeguard the integrity of sciences.

WAME Board of Directors and Committees 

Past Presidents 

  • Richard Horton (United Kingdom) March 1995 - Nov 1996 
  • Drummond Rennie (USA) Dec 1997 - Dec 1999 
  • Fiona Godlee (United Kingdom) Jan 2000 - Dec 2001
  • Ana Marusic (Croatia) Jan 2002 - Dec 2003 
  • Peush Sahni (India) Jan 2004 - Dec 2005
  • Michael Callaham (USA) Jan 2006 - Dec 2007 
  • Margaret Winker (USA) Jan 2008 - Dec 2009
  • John Overbeke (Netherlands) Jan 2010 - Dec 2011
  • Farrokh Habibzadeh (Iran) Jan 2012 - Dec 2013
  • Lorraine Ferris (Canada) Jan 2014 - Dec 2015
  • Rod Rohrich (USA) Jan 2016 - Dec 2017 
  • Christine Laine (USA) Jan 2018 - Dec 2019
  • Rob Siebers (New Zealand) Jan 2020 - June 2022

WAME Statement

WAME Member Meetings

WAME Conference Reports

WAME Outgoing Board Report 2001-2003

Articles about WAME: