British peer-reviewed medical journal
Academic journal
The BMJ
is a weekly
peer-reviewed
medical journal, published by BMJ Group, which in turn is wholly-owned by the
British Medical Association
(BMA).
The BMJ
has editorial freedom from the BMA.
[1]
It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Previously called the
British Medical Journal
, the title was officially shortened to
BMJ
in 1988, and then changed to
The BMJ
in 2014.
[2]
The journal is published by
BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
, a
subsidiary
of the
British Medical Association
(BMA). The current
editor-in-chief
of
The BMJ
is
Kamran Abbasi
, who was appointed in January 2022.
[3]
History
[
edit
]
The journal began publishing on 3 October 1840 as the
Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal
and quickly attracted the attention of physicians around the world through its publication of high-quality original research articles and unique case reports.
[4]
The
BMJ
'
s first editors were
P. Hennis Green
, lecturer on the diseases of children at the
Hunterian School of Medicine
, who also was its founder, and
Robert Streeten
of
Worcester
, a member of the
Provincial Medical and Surgical Association
council.
[
citation needed
]
Cover of the 1st issue of the
Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal
The first issue of the
Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal
(
PMSJ
) was 16 pages long and contained three simple woodcut illustrations. The longest items were the editors' introductory editorial and a report of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association's Eastern Branch. Other pages included a condensed version of
Henry Warburton
's medical reform bill, book reviews, clinical papers, and case notes. There were
2
+
1
⁄
2
columns of advertisements. Inclusive of stamp duty it cost 7d, a price that remained until 1844. In their main article, Green and Streeten noted that they had "received as many advertisements (in proportion to the quantity of letter press) for our first number, as the most popular Medical Journal [
The Lancet
], after seventeen years of existence."
[4]
In their introductory editorial and later statements, Green and Streeten defined "the main objects of promotion of which the
Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal
is established". Summarized, there were two clear main objectives: the advancement of the profession, especially in the provinces, and dissemination of medical knowledge. Green and Streeten also expressed an interest in promoting public well-being, as well as maintaining 'medical practitioners, as a class in that rank of society which, by their intellectual acquirements, by their general moral character, and by the importance of the duties entrusted to them, they are justly entitled to hold'.
[4]
In April 1842 the journal was retitled the
Provincial Medical Journal and Retrospect of the Medical Sciences
, but two years later it reverted to the
PMSJ
under the sole editorship of Streeten. In 1857 the
BMJ
first appeared, when the
PMSJ
was merged with the
Associated Medical Journal
(Volumes 1?4; 1853?1856), which had itself evolved from the
London Medical Journal
(Volumes 1?4; 1849?1852) under the editorship of
John Rose Cormack
.
[5]
The BMJ
published the first centrally randomized controlled trial.
[6]
The journal also carried seminal papers on the causal effects of smoking on health
[7]
[8]
and lung cancer and other causes of death in relation to smoking.
[9]
For a long time, the journal's sole competitor was
The Lancet
, also based in the UK, but with increasing globalization,
The BMJ
has faced tough competition from other medical journals, particularly
The New England Journal of Medicine
and the
Journal of the American Medical Association
,
[10]
now known as JAMA.
Journal content
[
edit
]
The BMJ
is an advocate of
evidence-based medicine
. It publishes research as well as clinical reviews, recent medical advances, and editorial perspectives, among others.
A special "Christmas Edition" is published annually on the Friday before Christmas. This edition is known for research articles which apply a serious academic approach to investigating less serious medical questions.
[11]
[12]
[13]
The results are often humorous and widely reported by the mainstream media.
[12]
[14]
The BMJ
has an
open peer review
system, in which authors are told who reviewed their manuscript. About half of all submitted articles are rejected without external review.
[15]
Manuscripts chosen for peer review are then reviewed by external experts, who comment on the importance of the work and its suitability for publication, before the final decision on a manuscript is made by the editorial ("hanging") committee, so called because of its similarity to committees that decide which works of art should be hung in an exhibition. The acceptance rate is less than 7% for original research articles.
[16]
At the beginning of February 2021,
The BMJ
introduced a charge of £299 for publishing obituaries. This was widely criticized on social media, by the British Medical Association among others, because of the large number of medical staff being killed by COVID-19.
[17]
The decision was explained, but reversed, by the end of the month.
[18]
Rapid Recommendations
[
edit
]
In response to the many problems with traditional
medical guidelines
, the journal introduced
BMJ Rapid Recommendations
, a series of trustworthy guidelines focused on the most pressing medical problems.
[19]
Rapid Responses
[
edit
]
The BMJ
publishes most e-letters to the journal on its website under the heading Rapid Responses,
[20]
organized as a fully moderated Internet forum. Comments are screened for unacceptable content, such as libel or obscenity, and contributors may not remove or edit contributions once they have been published.
[21]
As of January 2013,
[update]
88,500 rapid responses had been posted on the BMJ's website.
[21]
Indexing and citations
[
edit
]
The BMJ
is included in the major indexes
PubMed
,
MEDLINE
,
EBSCO
, and the
Science Citation Index
. The journal has long criticized the misuse of impact factors to award grants and in the recruitment of researchers by academic institutions.
[22]
The five journals that cited
The BMJ
most often in 2008 were (in order of descending citation frequency)
The BMJ
, the
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
,
The Lancet
,
BMC Public Health
, and
BMC Health Services Research
.
[23]
In the same year the five journals most often cited in articles published in
The BMJ
were
The BMJ
,
The Lancet
,
The New England Journal of Medicine
,
Journal of the American Medical Association
and the
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
.
[23]
Impact
[
edit
]
In the 2022
Journal Citation Reports
The BMJ's
impact factor
was reported to be 107.7.
[24]
ranking it fourth among general medical journals.
[25]
However,
The BMJ
in 2013 reported that it had become a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (commonly known as the
Dora Agreement
), which deprecates the inappropriate use of journal impact factors and urges journal publishers to "greatly reduce the emphasis on the journal impact factor as a promotional tool, ideally by ceasing to promote the impact factor or by presenting it in the context of a variety of journal-based metrics."
[26]
Cello scrotum hoax article
[
edit
]
In 1974,
Elaine Murphy
submitted a brief case report under her husband's name
John
which suggested a condition known as "
cello scrotum
", a fictional condition that supposedly affected male cellists. It was originally submitted as a joke in response to "guitar nipple",
[27]
a condition similar to
jogger's nipple
in which some forms of guitar playing causes irritation to the nipple, which Murphy and her husband believed was also a joke. The case report was published in
The BMJ,
[28]
and although not widely cited, it was cited occasionally, often by sceptics,
[29]
[30]
because, for example, "when the cello is held in typical playing position, the body of the instrument is not near the scrotum."
[31]
In 2009, 35 years after the original case report was published, Murphy wrote a letter to
The BMJ
revealing that the report had been a hoax.
[32]
Website and access policies
[
edit
]
The BMJ
went fully online in 1995 and archived all its issues on the
World Wide Web
. In addition to the print content, the site contains supporting material for original research articles, additional news stories, and electronic letters to the editors.
In 1999, all content of
The BMJ
was made freely available online; however, in 2006 this changed to a subscription model. Original research articles continue to be available free, but from January 2006 all other "added value" contents, including clinical reviews and editorials, require a subscription.
The BMJ
allows complete free access for visitors from economically disadvantaged countries as part of the
HINARI
initiative.
[
citation needed
]
In October 2008
The BMJ
announced that it would become an
open access
journal for research articles. A subscription continued to be required for access to other articles.
[33]
Editions
[
edit
]
The BMJ
is principally an online journal, and only the website carries the full text content of every article. However, print editions are produced, targeting different groups of readers with selections of content, some of it abridged, and different advertising.
[34]
The print editions are:
- General Practice
(weekly) for
general practitioners
- Clinical Research
(weekly) for hospital doctors
- Academic
(monthly) for institutions, researchers, and medical academics
The BMJ
also publishes a number of overseas/ foreign language editions: Argentine (in Spanish), Greek, Romanian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern (in English). There is also the
Student BMJ
, an online resource for medical students and junior doctors, which publishes an annual print edition each September.
Other services and information
[
edit
]
The BMJ
offers several alerting services, free on request:
[35]
- This Week In The BMJ
: A weekly table of contents email, latest research, video, blogs and editorial comment.
- Editor's choice
: The Editor-in-Chief or an Associate Editor introduces a selection of the latest research, medical news, comment, and education each week.
- Today on bmj.com
A daily alert with links to a short selection of articles published in
The BMJ
in the previous 24 hours.
Editors
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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- ^
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- ^
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{{
retracted
|...}}
with
{{
retracted
|...|intentional=yes}}
.
)
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External links
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
The BMJ
.