Qualitative research makes an important contribution to research in the medical sciences. It has a particular role in providing understanding with respect to decisions and behaviours of patients and professionals, in exploring factors affecting the implementation of new interventions, and in developing theory in fields such as illness behaviour, clinical decision making, illness prevention, and...

Sir,?Many of us subscribe to the medical journals and some desire to maintain them filed for future reference. It is usually done by binding the issues in individual volumes with volume-index attached in the beginning. I have been doing so for some 3'ears, but after realizing great inconvenience thereby, have adopted a different method which has proved useful to me. At the recommendation of my ...

534 CMAJ, March 22, 2011, 183(5) © 2011 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors The influence of the promotional practices of pharmaceutical manufacturers on the prescribing behaviour of physicians has long been recognized. Since the early 1980s, studies of this phenomenon have repeatedly shown that physicians’ knowledge of drug properties is more consistent with sales information than wi...

Reviewers play key roles in manuscript processing and publication. This article describes in detail how the reviewer serves their two key roles as a gatekeeper of making publication recommendations for the editorial board and a consultant providing constructive comments to authors to improve the quality of the manuscripts to be published.

Statistical editors of the Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences (MJMS) must go through many submitted manuscripts, focusing on the statistical aspect of the manuscripts. However, the editors notice myriad styles of reporting the statistical results, which are not standardised among the authors. This could be due to the lack of clear written instructions on reporting statistics in the guideline...

One of my first experiences of the relation between medical journals and pharmaceutical companies occurred in the early 1980s after the BMJ had published papers suggesting that a new non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, benoxaprofen, might have serious side effects. We were visited by three stern men from Eli Lilly, the makers of the drug. Tony Smith, the deputy editor, conducted the meeting a...

Advertising is a leading strategy for drug promotion. We analysed 779 advertisements in 24 medical journals, 25% of which featured antibiotics. Antibiotic advertisements showed differences compared to those of other drugs. None addressed the issue of antibiotic resistance. Efforts to prevent antibiotic resistance should take antibiotic advertising into consideration.

Editors from a number of medical journals lay out principles for journals considering publication of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER). In order to encourage dissemination of this editorial, this article is freely available in PLoS Medicine and will be also published in Medical Decision Making, Croatian Medical Journal, The Cochrane Library, Trials, The American Journal of Managed Care, ...

Because they do not rank highly in the hierarchy of evidence and are not frequently cited, case reports describing the clinical circumstances of single patients are seldom published by medical journals. However, many clinicians argue that case reports have significant educational value, advance medical knowledge, and complement evidence-based medicine. Over the last several years, a vast number...

a dissertation on the prophylaxis and treatment, of the condition. Wrappers and Covers Their wrappings are drab and difficult to remove, so the journals accumulate on our desks in inconvenient piles and roll on to the floor. There is little incentive to make the effort of opening them. When opened they have a strong tendency to roll themselves up again. The covers are as drab as the wrappers. T...