The Membership of Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences Editor in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

For the first time in the Middle East, the Editor-in-Chief of Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences (IJMS) which is the official journal of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) is accepted as a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the Chairman of IJMS and the Head of Pharmacology Department of SUMS said as reported by Web-da in Shiraz.

This committee includes a limited number of the editors of predominant medical journals which publish articles in a diverse range of medical sciences. The committee, including a group of five persons as the fundamental members and some other famous international journal editors such as New England Journal of Medicine, AIM, the BMJ, The Lancet, and JAMA, was established 30 years ago, Dr. Mohammad Reza Panjeh Shahin remarked.

The committee determines standard basic approaches and headlines toward the publication of medical sciences articles in international journals; therefore, the guidelines must be employed by all medical journals, he added.

Moreover, the members of the committee are currently 13 persons and for the first time in the Middle East, Dr. Behrooz Astaneh has been chosen as one of the main members of the international committee that is an important success for SUMS, Iran and Asia, he declared.

He, in the end, appreciated previous and present Chancellors of SUMS, SUMS’ Vice-Chancellery for Research and Technology and SUMS’ faculty members for their support of the journal as the main symbol of SUMS in the region and the world.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) is known as “Vancouver group” among medical researchers and the editors of medical journals.  The group, since 1979, has been preparing standard instructions and guidelines for writing articles, doing researches and reporting articles, the member of ICMJE and the Editor-in-Chief of IJMS mentioned.

The leading five international medical journals including AIM, the BMJ, the Lancet, JAMA and New England Journal of Medicine as the oldest international medical journal form the central core of the group’s founders, Dr. Behrooz Astaneh added.

Annually, the group arranges a meeting to provide the latest revisions considering Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM). The latest meeting was held in November 2017 in Copenhagen, Denmark and new changes in the guidelines have been implemented, therefore, to be declared and published in the near future, the Supervisor of the Journalist Group of SUMS stated.

Considering the history of IJMS, he said: IJMS was first published in 1970 and since then it is prepared and published in Shiraz; besides, the journal is the second English journal of medical sciences in the country.

The journal works on the field of general medicine, thus, the professors in charge of managing the journal and as the editorial board work on a variety of medical fields consisting basic sciences and different clinical sciences, he continued.

Also, with regard to the number of received articles and the published ones in each edition of the journal as well as the total number of published articles in each year, the growth of the journal within previous years has been considerable. About ten years ago, the journal was published seasonally and the number of the published articles was approximately 10 while the submitted articles were 110 ones in a year. In the present moment, due to professional interactions with researchers and writers in addition to increasing work speed, precision and deep thinking ability of the editorial members in choosing articles, the growing number of submitted articles is noticeable, the member of ICMJE and the Editor of IJMS indicated.

According to the latest statistics, 793 articles were submitted in 2016. Further, in previous years the journal has turned into a bimonthly one and the number of published articles in each edition has reached 16 which equivalates to the total submitted articles of other medical publications of the country. Also, the process of surveying articles during the period between the reception of the submitted articles and the publication is the most standard approach applied in Iran, Dr. Astaneh believed.

30 percent of about 800 articles sent to the journal are from other countries. Comparing other medical journals of the country which receive articles from neighboring countries and India, a great number of submitted articles to IJMS are from far away countries as Serbia, Italy, Japan, Eygept, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan,  and the countries of Persian Gulf regions, he concluded.