First time posting here, so apologies if this is not the correct place for this, and likewise that it is quite lengthy.
By way of background, I am a doctor and wrote a paper last year with two of my colleagues regarding treatment of an unusual injury we had seen a few times in our practice. A case series with a systematic review of the literature would describe it best. I am first author so I have been responsible for the submission process.
We submitted our paper to a well established and generally well regarded journal at the end of October last year and are somewhat disheartened that we are still no closer to publication. To explain this, our initial draft returned from peer review with recommendation for publication from one reviewer and 5 recommendations from the second reviewer most of which were in relation to labels on figures being too long, and one query regarding histology. Nothing major. We addressed these and our paper returned to the editor. This time around an issue was raised with our consent forms that was not previously picked up, specifically that the lead clinician responsible for the care of our patients co-signed the forms and the signature was below the required line. Logistically we were unable to meet the patients to complete new ones and our paper was almost rejected completely. We appealed with the publication ethics team of the journal who agreed that the forms contained all necessary information, and that the journal should accept them.
So we went on to peer review number 2. Our paper returned and we received a decision letter from the editor. This was very vague and advised us to review our paper closely and invited us to submit another draft. No reviewers comments were provided. Unsure of what exactly we were missing, but more than happy and willing to improve our paper, I emailed the editorial office for more feedback which was not forthcoming. I then asked if peer reviewers comments from the second round could be provided as these may provide insight. Again nothing.
Unsure where to go, I contacted the support service for the journal in question (this publisher has multiple journals, and up until now I was only dealing with the editorial office of our particular journal). They were very helpful, were able to access my file/account and sent reviewers feedback to me. Both reviewers in the second round were happy with our changes and recommended publication. With this in mind I submitted a tidied up third draft which the editor has sent out for a third round of peer review today. I am unsure why, but am quite sure they are unaware that I have been given the feedback from the second round.
My question is are authors entitled to see feedback from peer review? Or was I wrong to request to see it?
My personal feeling is that the journal withheld it as they do not want to publish the paper, maybe because of the consent form issue and us kind of undermining their decision by going to their publication ethics team. If they do not want to accept it we are totally fine with that, as much as we would like it to be published with them. I am sure we will find another home for it, and we really don’t want to waste any further time if they are not seriously considering it. I am tempted to tell them we have seen the second round of reviews as I feel this may force their hand one way or another but am unsure what to do. Very frustrated and disheartened.