Since the pandemic, things have been very stressful and traumatic for nurses in all settings including MCN authors and reviewers. Providing direct patient care, acting in leadership roles, trying to maintain research projects conceived and started before the pandemic, grant applications, and scholarly writing, among other activities, all in the context of concerns about contracting the COVID-19 virus, family members getting sick, no childcare, no extended family support while staying safe at home, virtual learning, misinformation dissemination, political discord, a violent attempt in January 2021 to overturn the presidential election, and now as I am writing this in September 2021, a "fourth wave of the virus," have contributed to all of our stress.

In March of 2020, in the early months of the pandemic when many businesses and academic institutions began to shut down and many people who were able to stay home and work remotely did so, we were unsure how this would affect our journal. Would nurses still submit manuscripts to MCN? Would reviewers still agree to review manuscripts? How would we handle any of these changes if they occurred? As other editors of nursing journals noted during our recent meeting of the International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE), many nursing journals have received more manuscripts than usual during 2020 and 2021. This includes MCN. At the INANE meeting, challenges with reviewers accepting invitations to review and completing reviews in a timely manner were mentioned. I learned that some journals have moved to a system of 2 reviewers per manuscript. As part of my editor role, I am expected to promote the journal on social media sites like Twitter. Posts from editors of scholarly journals in nursing, medicine, and social sciences include discussions of reviewer challenges, for example, it may take 15 invitations to get 2 reviewers to accept the invitation to review, and in some cases, no one agrees. I'm pleased to report we have not had these issues at MCN. We continue to use a 3-reviewer system for each manuscript. When a new manuscript is submitted and deemed of high quality enough to merit peer review, I invite 4 reviewers. Usually, 3 will agree and complete the review, but sometimes all 4 do so. This is a testament to the wonderful MCN reviewer panel. We have ~120 reviewers, many of whom have long tenure with our journal. We have a number of early career nursing scholars who have volunteered as well. We welcome any maternity, neonatal, or pediatric nurses who are interested in reviewing. Contact me at [email protected]

During the pandemic, several reviewers have let me know they are free to review more manuscripts, acknowledging that their colleagues are likely overworked and stressed right now. We really appreciate this effort. Without reviewers, the journal cannot function. There are many MCN reviewers I know I can count on to prepare a thorough, kind, helpful, scholarly, and timely review. We've decided to acknowledge some of these volunteer reviewers with designation of MCN Reviewers of the Year for 2021.

Cheryl Anderson, PhD, RN

Jane E Corrarino, DNP, RN

Teresa Johnson, PhD, RN

Jean Salera-Vieira, MS, RNC-OB, C-EFM

Ida Slusher, DSN, RN

Thank you for all your dedication to the scholarly activities of MCN journal reviewing in the midst of some many other competing events and requirements. Your work is very much valued by the authors who receive your careful feedback and by all of us who are members of the MCN journal team.