Author’s failure to read and follow instructions leads to increased trauma to their manuscripts

Authors under pressure to publish to meet some academic requirement are one of the most dangerous pressure group which the editors of good quality peer review biomedical journals have to face every day. Their failure to read and follow instructions for authors which are published on every journal website, lack of training facilities in research methodology, medical writing, and low computer literacy rate leads to increased trauma to their manuscripts. The authors must realize that from submission to final publication manuscripts go through various stages i.e. internal review, editor's triage, similarity index check, formatting, external review, revision of the manuscripts in the light of reviewers comments and suggestions. It all takes time and there is no short cut. They must plan at least for six to eight months from the date of submission to acceptance and publication and avoid getting trapped by predatory journals which offer quick publication on payment

Impact factor is off the ventilator: survives and is thriving

Impact Factor [IF] of academic journals continues to gain further importance with not only science community but also academic institutions, funding agencies as well as the Editors of academic journals the world over with every passing day. Despite lot of criticism IF has attracted over the last decade in particular and lot of drawbacks, it is still considered as the best available Scientometrics to judge the standard of an academic journal

How to ensure effective use of media to communicate with healthcare professionals and general public

Image of the medical profession in the public is not so good these days for various reasons. Media, electronic in particular takes pleasure in defaming, humiliating and running malicious campaigns against doctors and healthcare facilities. They run announcement as breaking news and pass sweeping remarks without knowing the full facts of the incidents. Media houses does not employ professionals with some core knowledge on health related issues which they cover. Most of them know nothing about it but they are also reluctant to admit it and pose themselves as experts. Medical profession also shares some blame for all this because they have never organized any orientation courses for health journalists. Yet another reason is the failure of the medical profession to effectively use media to communicate with the healthcare professionals as well as the public. Self-monitoring, accountability, having a good communication strategy, besides other initiatives can go a long way in improving the medical related news coverage thereby enhancing the image of the medical profession as well

How to run a successful journal

Publishing and successfully running a good quality peer reviewed biomedical scientific journal is not an easy task. Some of the pre-requisites include a competent experienced editor supported by a team. Long term sustainability of a journal will depend on good quality manuscripts, active editorial board, good quality of reviewers, workable business model to ensure financial support, increased visibility which will ensure increased submissions, indexation in various important databases, online availability and easy to use website. This manuscript outlines the logistics and technical issues which need to be resolved before starting a new journal and ensuring sustainability of a good quality peer reviewed journal

Proceedings of PAME Second National Conference 2014

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Are the editors faced with e-problems performing their duties and responsibilities satisfactorily?

Astonishing revolution in information technology, developments in electronic publishing and availability of manuscript management software's has provided lot of facilities to authors, reviewers as well as editors but it has also given birth to lot of e-problems. This communication highlights some of these e-problems besides discussing the manuscript management system practiced by Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences through modified Open Journal System. It also cautions the editors of small journals faced with financial and human resource constraints to keep themselves abreast of all these developments, go for automation in e publishing gradually as all the stake holders i.e. authors, reviewers and office management staff learns these and become used to it