British Medical Journal
The
British Medical Journal (BMJ), is one of the most popular and widely-read peer-reviewed general medical journals around the world. It is published by the
BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (owned by the
British Medical Association), whose other publications include popular sub-speciality journals like
The Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry,
Heart,
Thorax, among others, and
Student BMJ for medical students around the world.
The current editor of the BMJ is Fiona Godlee, who replaced the former editor-in-chief,
Richard Smith after he resigned in July 2004. The former was appointed in February 2005, and
Kamran Abbasi served as the acting editor in the interim.
The BMJ is an emphatic advocate of
evidence-based medicine, and publishes original
research,
clinical reviews, news,
editorial perspectives, personal views and
career focus articles to mention a few. Recently, its
readership has witnessed a surge in the number of articles focussing on medical
ethics and
health in developing nations.
The Journal also releases a number of '
theme issues' every year, when it publishes research and review articles pertaining to the theme addressed. Some of the popular theme issues in recent years include 'Health in
Africa', 'Management of
Chronic Diseases' and '
Global Voices on the
AIDS Catastrophe'. Apart from these, a special two-week 'Christmas Issue' is released every year, on the Friday preceding the year's Christmas.
BMJ has four paper editions (which have the same content but different advertising):
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General Practice edition for General Practitioners.
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Clinical Research for hospital doctors.
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International edition for overseas subscribers.
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Compact Edition for retired members of the BMA.
Some of the international editions are also available in local languages.
Submission of manuscripts to the BMJ is done via a completely online manuscript processing system called
BenchPress (a service of
Stanford University's
HighWire Press). Several authors have welcomed this all-online system, as it removes several cumbersome procedures employed by several other general medical journals while submitting a manusript.
The BMJ has an open
peer-review system, wherein the authors will be informed who reviewed their
manuscripts. About 60 to 65% of all the submissions to the journals are rejected without a peer-review. The acceptance rate is less than 7% for original research articles. Articles chosen for peer-review are first '
refereed' to experts, who comment on their importance and suitability for
publication before they are sent for external review.
Decisions for those manuscripts sent for external review are usually reached within eight weeks. If not, the decisions are usually reached within two weeks.
The journal began its journey in
1840 as the Provincial Medical and
Surgical Journal, and quickly attracted the attention of physicians around the world through its publication of high-impact original
research articles and unique
case reports. For a long time, its sole competitor was
the Lancet (also from the UK), but with increasing
globalisation, the BMJ has faced tough competition from other medical journals, particulary
the New England Journal of Medicine and
JAMA.
The BMJ is considered to be one of the 'core' general medical journals; the others being the
New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med), the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and
The Lancet. Few authorities also include the
Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) and
Annals of Internal Medicine also in this category, although the latter is a monthly publication unlike the rest.
The
impact factor of the journal was 7.209 in
2003. The journal has long criticised the misuse of impact factor, especially its increasing usage to recruit
researchers by
academic institutions.
The BMJ went fully online in 1995, and has archived all its issues dating back to 1994 on the internet. In addition to the print content, supportive material for original research articles, additional news stories, and electronic letters to the editors are its principal attractions. The BMJ website has a remarkable policy of publishing most e-letters to the journal, called 'Rapid Responses', and is shaped like a fully moderated internet forum. However, concerns remain, even among the web-editors of the journal, that this feature may be abused by correspondents who might not want to contribute anything substantial to the topic under discussion. A Firefox/Greasemonkey killfile filter obtainable from http://www.userscripts.org/scripts/show/1956 was developed for this reason, to avoid annoyance, by some British doctors.
In the past all content of the BMJ was freely available online; however, it recently (
2005) changed to a subscription model. Original research articles shall continue to be available freely; however, from January 2006, all other contents, including clinical reviews and editorials, shall require a subscription to the website. All access restrictions will be lifted a year after the publication of an issue.
The BMJ, like
N Engl J Med, allows complete free access for visitors from economically disadvantaged countries. Of the major general medical journals, only the
Canadian Medical Association Journal is available under complete open access (i.e. no registration/login is required).
The Journal of Clinical Investigation (J Clin Invest), though not a general medical journal, is a notable biomedical research journal whose entire archive (dating back to 1924) is available freely online.
The BMJ website was judged one of the web's five most useful health sites by
the Guardian Online in 2004.
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Journal of the American Medical Association*
New England Journal of Medicine*
The Lancet*
Canadian Medical Association Journal*
Student BMJ*
List of medical journals*
BMJ Online*
The British Medical Association*
BMJ publishing group*
Other BMJ Journals
