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Clinical Reviewers

Every clinical article on Ilerada is reviewed by a verified healthcare professional before it is published. Their name, credentials and the date of their review are displayed on every article.

This page explains who our reviewers are, what reviewing involves, how they are recruited, and how you can apply if you want to join the panel.

Why named reviewers matter

Health information without named accountability is easy to produce and impossible to trust. Almost anyone can write a plausible-sounding article about hypertension or malaria or infant feeding, and most of what people find when they search for health information online has no named clinician behind it at all.

We believe that a clinician’s name on an article changes the accountability structure in ways that matter:

  • The clinician has staked their professional reputation on what the article says.
  • The reader can look them up.
  • If something is wrong, there is someone to answer for it.
  • The reviewer knows they are answerable, which means they read the article carefully.

This is standard practice in clinical publishing. It is not standard practice in consumer health information. We think it should be.

Who our reviewers are

Ilerada’s clinical reviewers are registered Nigerian healthcare professionals. Our panel currently includes:

  • Medical doctors (MBBS/MBChB and above), including general practitioners and specialists in relevant fields
  • Pharmacists (BPharm, PharmD, MPharm and above)
  • Registered nurses and midwives
  • Registered dietitians and nutritionists
  • Clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists
  • Community health officers and senior community health extension workers (SCHEWs)

Reviewers are matched to articles in their area of competence. A pharmacist reviews drug-related content. A paediatrician reviews children’s health content. A registered dietitian reviews nutrition content. A general practitioner may review articles on common conditions where specialist review would be disproportionate to the topic.

What reviewers check

Reviewers are given a structured checklist alongside every article they review. They are asked to consider:

Factual accuracy
Is every clinical claim in the article supported by current evidence and current guidelines — specifically, Nigerian guidelines where they exist?

Completeness
Is anything important missing? Are the right red-flag symptoms present? Are there groups of people for whom the general advice does not apply, and is that acknowledged?

Safety
Could anything in this article, if followed by a reader, cause harm? Reviewers have an explicit instruction to flag anything — a drug interaction, a dose, a recommendation — that gives them pause.

Nigerian appropriateness
Are the medicines mentioned available in Nigeria? Are doses and formulations correct for the Nigerian market? Are the referral pathways — emergency numbers, types of facility to go to — accurate for a Nigerian reader?

Reading level
Has the editorial rewrite genuinely achieved a reading age of 12, or has clinical jargon crept back in?

Conflict of interest
Reviewers are asked to declare any financial or professional relationship with a pharmaceutical company, medical device manufacturer, or other commercial entity with an interest in the topic. This is asked at the point of each review, not just at recruitment.

After review, the clinician may: approve the article as written; request specific changes; or, rarely, reject the article on the grounds that it cannot be made accurate and safe without a more fundamental rewrite. Articles are not published without reviewer sign-off.

What reviewing does not involve

We want to be clear about what we are asking of reviewers, and what we are not:

  • Reviewers are not asked to write the article from scratch. They review a completed draft.
  • Reviewers are not required to be available on a daily basis. Reviews are scheduled to allow reasonable lead time — typically five to ten working days per article.
  • Reviewers are not anonymous. Their name and credentials are published with the article. This is a condition of joining the panel.
  • Reviewers are not responsible for reader decisions made after reading an article. Our Medical Disclaimer makes clear that Ilerada is general health information, not personal clinical advice.

How reviewers are recruited

We recruit reviewers through a combination of direct outreach, professional networks, medical and nursing associations, and applications from clinicians who contact us.

Every prospective reviewer goes through the same process:

  1. Credential verification. We verify registration with the relevant Nigerian regulatory body — the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), the Dietitians and Nutritionists Registration Board of Nigeria (DNRBN), or equivalent — before anyone joins the panel.
  2. Introductory review. New reviewers complete one introductory review with close editorial support. This is not a test — it is an opportunity for the reviewer to understand our standards and for us to understand how they work.
  3. Conflict of interest declaration. Before joining, reviewers complete a standing declaration of any commercial relationships in healthcare. This is updated annually and at the point of each review.
  4. Briefing on our editorial standards. We share our editorial guidelines, our style guide, and our approach to reading level, Nigerian context and red-flag placement.

There is no quota for how many articles a reviewer is expected to take on. We work with each person’s availability.

Are reviewers paid?

We pay reviewers for each review completed. We do not ask for volunteer labour for clinical review — we believe the work has value and should be compensated.

For some reviewers, particularly those affiliated with academic institutions, a formal attribution and a link to their institutional profile page may be more useful than the fee. We are happy to discuss this on a case-by-case basis.

We do not offer payment in kind, product, or promotional benefit. If a clinician reviews an article about a drug their employer makes, they should not be reviewing that article at all — see the conflict of interest section above.

For clinicians who want to join the reviewer panel

We are always looking to expand our reviewer panel, particularly in:

  • Paediatrics and child health
  • Mental health (psychiatry, clinical psychology, counselling)
  • Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • Pharmacy and clinical pharmacology
  • Rural and community health (CHOs, SCHEWs who can review PHC-level content)
  • Clinicians who read and write fluently in Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa, for language-edition review

If you are a registered Nigerian healthcare professional and would like to review for Ilerada:

  1. Write to editorial@ilerada.com with the subject line “Clinical reviewer application”.
  2. Include your full name, your regulatory registration body and number, your primary area of clinical expertise, and a brief note on your current role.
  3. We will respond within ten working days.

We do not require academic publications or teaching hospital affiliation. We require registration, clinical competence in the relevant area, and a willingness to have your name on the articles you review.

For readers

If you want to know more about the reviewer named on a specific article, the information displayed on that article — name, credentials, review date — is the starting point. You can verify registration with the MDCN at mdcn.gov.ng, with the PCN at pcnng.gov.ng, or with the relevant regulatory body for other professions.

If you have a concern about clinical content on a specific article — a factual error, a missing piece of information, or something you believe could be harmful — please write to corrections@ilerada.com rather than contacting the reviewer directly. Our corrections process is described in detail on our Editorial Process page.

Contact

Medical disclaimer: Ilerada provides general health information reviewed by qualified clinicians. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or a qualified health provider. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.