Journal editors and academic medicine

Twenty years ago, the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ) published a series of articles about academic medicine and the ways to revitalize it in the context of contemporary challenges in medicine (1,2). The articles were from all around the world (Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Republic of Macedonia, Malawi, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and USA) and discussed the future of academic medicine as the intersection of research, professional practice, and education (1,2). Figure 1 shows the cover page of the CMJ from 2004, when the FORUM series on academic medicine was started

National vs. international journals: views of medical professionals in Croatia

Scholarly journals, especially in non-English-speaking countries, may perform very different functions depending on whether they are published for national or international audiences. Four hundred and sixty-six academic physicians and non-academic general practitioners in Croatia were surveyed on their knowledge about two Croatian medical journals: Liječnički vjesnik (published in Croatian) and Croatian Medical Journal (published in English). The physicians were also surveyed about the importance of all national and international journals published in Croatia, and the types of articles they thought should be published in these journals. More respondents rated national (n = 329, 72.6%) than international journals (n = 275, 63.5%, P < 0.001, Wilcoxon test) as very important for the medical profession. On the other hand, publishing in international journals was more often rated as important than publishing in national journals (n = 184, 42.5% vs. n = 125, 27.8%; P < 0.001, Wilcoxon test). Guidelines for clinical practice were rated as the most important publication item in national journals, and original scientific articles in international journals

Food safety and security: what were favourite topics for research in the last decade?

The world is faced with the challenge to feed an estimated 9 billion population of the Earth by 2050. To address the scientific evidence for the safety of food, I searched the Web of Science bibliographical and citation database for most cited articles from this research area. The topics with greatest impact on the research community, judged by their annual rate of citations during the last decade, were foodborne pathogens and toxins, with emerging genetic studies and new methods of visualising toxins on surfaces. Epidemiological and survey studies demonstrated that there was systematic effort to document, rapidly detect and control epidemic spread of disease and that these measures decreased the threat to food safety in developed countries, but that there is still much room for improvement. Research relevant for developing countries included the potential molecular targets to alleviate accumulation of arsenic in rice. As in other areas of research and life, human factor seems to be the most important one for the safety of food. The five keys to safer food of the WHO – keep clean, separate raw and cooked, cook thoroughly, keep food at safe temperatures, use safe water and raw materials – are thus still very relevant for the developed as much as the developing world

What’s in a name? The problem of authors’ names in research articles.

When the editors of Biochemia Medica asked me to write a viewpoint on using a single name in au-thors’ by-line to a journal article, recently discussed on the Listserve of the World Association of Medi-cal Editors (WAME) (1), I recalled two of my past experiences with names in research publishing

Nurse in a team: cross-sectional study of nurses’ opinions on physician-nurse relationship

Background: For a long time, physicians have considered themselves superior to nurses, whose duty has been to carry out physicians’ orders regardless of their professional and scientific background and efficiency. Nowadays, a more professional approach to nursing profession emphasizes their professional autonomy. There are not many studies of the physician-nurse relationship that lead nurses to obedience towards physicians and their demands. We investigated nurses reactions to situations in which they are asked to fulfil physicians’ demands even when such actions are against their knowledge, beliefs or experience. Methods: We included 94 nurses, employees of the University Hospital Centre Split, Croatia in a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire included demographic data, attitudes toward their work, self-esteem scale and 3 case vignettes in which participants submitted their answers on visual analogue scales. The first case vignette was related to the nurses’ knowledge, the second one to their experience, and the third one to their professional beliefs. Results: Nurses with a high level of self-esteem were more likely to disagree with a subordinate physician-nurse relationship. Also, when it comes to their own opinion and potential, nurses were willing to carry out the demands of the physicians even when it is contrary to their knowledge, experience and beliefs. Conclusion: Even though they are aware of their autonomy and their prerogative to make their own decisions and act based on their professional competences, nurses seem to be prone to yielding to physicians’ demands in order to be accepted by their associates and to avoid any possible conflicts, even when such demands are not scientifically justified