Artists and critics : the national medical journals

The problems facing the publishing of a national medical journal are many. Established journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal and Lancet have first choice of the best articles, leaving other journals with only second and third rate material. This problem can be solved only by having a larger amount of research, with more authors wanting to publish and enough referees to review the material.peer-reviewe

Leading articles in medical journals in 1966

The British Journal of Hospital Medicine is 50 years old. This article takes a look back at articles published during the year of its inception from the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and the Journal of the American Medical Association

Cluster randomised trials in the medical literature: two bibliometric surveys

Background: Several reviews of published cluster randomised trials have reported that about half did not take clustering into account in the analysis, which was thus incorrect and potentially misleading. In this paper I ask whether cluster randomised trials are increasing in both number and quality of reporting. Methods: Computer search for papers on cluster randomised trials since 1980, hand search of trial reports published in selected volumes of the British Medical Journal over 20 years. Results: There has been a large increase in the numbers of methodological papers and of trial reports using the term 'cluster random' in recent years, with about equal numbers of each type of paper. The British Medical Journal contained more such reports than any other journal. In this journal there was a corresponding increase over time in the number of trials where subjects were randomised in clusters. In 2003 all reports showed awareness of the need to allow for clustering in the analysis. In 1993 and before clustering was ignored in most such trials. Conclusion: Cluster trials are becoming more frequent and reporting is of higher quality. Perhaps statistician pressure works

A survey of statistics in three UK general practice journal

Background Many medical specialities have reviewed the statistical content of their journals. To our knowledge this has not been done in general practice. Given the main role of a general practitioner as a diagnostician we thought it would be of interest to see whether the statistical methods reported reflect the diagnostic process. Methods Hand search of three UK journals of general practice namely the British Medical Journal (general practice section), British Journal of General Practice and Family Practice over a one-year period (1 January to 31 December 2000). Results A wide variety of statistical techniques were used. The most common methods included t-tests and Chi-squared tests. There were few articles reporting likelihood ratios and other useful diagnostic methods. There was evidence that the journals with the more thorough statistical review process reported a more complex and wider variety of statistical techniques. Conclusions The BMJ had a wider range and greater diversity of statistical methods than the other two journals. However, in all three journals there was a dearth of papers reflecting the diagnostic process. Across all three journals there were relatively few papers describing randomised controlled trials thus recognising the difficulty of implementing this design in general practice

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Professor Published in Prestigious British Medical Journal Devon Jensen Appointed Interim Associate Dean of the College of Graduate Studie

National Fitness or Failure? Heredity, Vice and Racial Decline in New Zealand Psychiatry: A Case Study of the Auckland Mental Hospital, 1868-99

This thesis examines anxieties about national fitness and efficiency in nineteenth-century New Zealand through a detailed study of medical and popular ideas about the causes of mental illness. In particular, it foregrounds the perceived roles played by heredity and vice in medical diagnoses both inside institutions and in wider discussions about mental illness. The thesis draws upon medical journals, popular newspaper articles, government reports and debates, and patient case notes from the Auckland Mental Hospital between 1868 and 1899 to investigate discourses about the mentally ill, and to highlight the relationships between anxieties about this ‘problem’ section of the population and contemporary social concerns. This methodology demonstrates how a range of texts helped to produce a discursive association between heredity and vice, mental illness, and a feared decline in the ‘fitness’ of the ‘British’ race in New Zealand and in the wider British World, and also that the mentally ill in nineteenth-century New Zealand were often depicted as living consequences of a family history of indulgence in various forms of vice, or of the procreation of the mentally unfit. Medical and popular ideas about general paralysis and puerperal insanity, in particular, were strongly related to gender and class norms, and throughout this thesis, ideals of class and gender are explored as shaping influences on medical and popular theories about the aetiology of mental illness in general. By drawing on medical discourses from Britain and New Zealand, this thesis also demonstrates the transnational nature of psychiatric medical theories deployed in Britain and New Zealand. This transnational transmission of ideas occurred through the migration of British born and educated psychiatrists to New Zealand, the context of British medical journals (such as the British Medical Journal and the Journal of Mental Science) which circulated in New Zealand, and attendance at Intercolonial Medical Congresses, shared between New Zealand and the Australian colonies from 1892. Transactions from these congresses, along with medical journal articles and popular sources, reveal that the period from 1868 until the end of the nineteenth century was an intellectual environment ripe for the emergence of concerns about racial decline, a trend highlighted by the presence of the mentally ill, in a ‘new’ society

Incentives for Developing and Communicating Principles: A Reply

The commentators raised many interesting ideas in response to Armstrong and Pagell (2003), from which one general theme emerges: The commentators claim that management science lacks the incentives to encourage efforts to develop and communicate grounded principles. As a result, academics often conduct their research as an intellectual exercise with little concern as to whether their findings might eventually be of any practical use. The problem extends beyond management science. Smith (1991), an editor of the British Medical Journal, concluded from a review that only about 15 percent of medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence. He attributes this disconnect to an estimate that only about one percent of articles in medical journals are scientifically sound. Such results indicate problems with incentives in research.incentives, communication, principles

Hypnosis: A Medico-Moral Evolution

Author\u27s Introductory Note: About two years ago at the request of His Eminence, the late Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago, we started an investigation into the subject of hypnosis with the intention of making a medico-moral evaluation. To faciliate our work we drew up a questionnaire and sent it to six leading Catholic psychiatrists: Father William J. Devlin, S.J. of Loyola University, Chicago, Ill., Doctors Francis J. Braceland of the Institute of Living, Hartford, Conn., Francis J. Gerty of the University of Illinois, Chicago, Ill., John J. Madden of Loyola University Chicago, Ill., John J. Nurnberger of the University of Indiana, Indianapolis, Ind., and to Edward A. Strecker of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn. These men mediately or immediately directed us to send the questionnaire also to the following doctors who have been using hypnosis in their clinical practice: Doctors Milton H. Erickson, President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, of Phoenix, Ariz.; Merton M. Gill of Berkeley, Cal.; William S. Kroger of Chicago, Ill.; Lawrence S. Kubie of New York, N.Y.; Harold Rosen, Executive Secretary of the Society for Clinica1 and Experimental Hypnosis, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md and Lewis R. Wolberg of New York, N.Y. We also sent the questionnaire to Mr. Stanley L. Morel. a hypnotist studying in Chicago, Ill. Since all thirteen of these men answered the questionnaire in more or less detail, our debt of gratitude to them is very great. Some sent impartant articles and references to help in the study. In the body of the article where we quote these men without any specific reference we are quoting from their private answers to the questionnaire. Two other sources that we found especially helpful are the two official reports on hypnosis made by the British Medical Association. published in the British Medical journal. April 23, 1955, and by the American Medical Association, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Sept. 13, 1958

Tendencies in medical publications

To describe the trends of research design in publications from high-impact medical journals. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted by searching the 2011 electronic publications of the journals: New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, British Medical Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Studies were classified as primary and secondary. The journal impact factor was taken from the Journal Citation Report website. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze and interpret the data. Results: We analyzed 1130 publications: 804 primary and 326 secondary studies, which represented 71.2% and 28.8% of the total publications, respectively. Among the primary studies, randomized clinical trials (30.4%) were the most prevalent, followed by cohort studies (21.9%) and case reports (9.0%). Conclusions: These findings can have implications in Evidence-Based Medicine programs. Literature review should focus on reviewing secondary articles first, then experimental studies and finally, observational studie