Editorial Policy
The Journal of Medical Sciences (JMS) is the official journal of Khyber Medical College Peshawar, Pakistan. We consider articles on all topics pertaining to various disciplines of medicines for publication.
Our goal is to provide the reader reports of o r i g i n a l r e s e a r c h c o n d u c e d n a t i o n a l l y a n d internationally, original clinical observations accompanied by analysis and discussion, analysis of philosophical, ethical, or social aspects of the health professions or biomedical sciences, critical reviews, case reports with discussions and feed back on articles in the form of letters to editors. The journal is intended primarily for those in the health professions: researchers, practitioners, educators, administrators and students.
Manuscript Submission
The Journal of Medical Sciences follows the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals as approved by the International Committee of Medical journal Editors as updated in Oct. 2004 and available at www:icmje.org. Manuscripts are accepted for consideration if neither the article nor any of its contents has been or will be published or submitted elsewhere before appearing in Journal of Medical Sciences.
It should be typed in double space on one side of the A-4 size paper with clear margins on both sides. Abstract must not exceed 200 words and the article must not exceed 2000 words (excluding references). Articles exceeding the word count or not conforming to “Instructions for authors” will be returned without processing. It is further emphasized that results must not be duplicated in text/tables/figures/graphs.
Title and Authors Name
The first page of the manuscript must give the title of the article that should be concise and descriptive. Also include on this page the name(s) of the author(s), highest academic degrees, the name of the department and institution in which the work was done, the institutional affiliation of each author, and the name and address of the author to whom reprint requests should be addressed.
Any grant/support that requires acknowledgement should be mentioned on this page. Abstract’s word count and article (excluding references) word count should appear at the bottom of this page.
Abstracts
The second page of the manuscripts must contain an abstract of not more than 200 words. The abstract should consist of four paragraphs, labelled, as Objective, Methods, Results and Conclusion.
It should briefly describe respectively, the problem being addressed in the study, how the study was performed, the salient results and what the authors conclude from the results.
Key words
Three to 10 key words or short phrases should be added to the bottom of the abstract page. Terms from the Medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used.
Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements and references should all start on a separate page from page 03 onwards.
References
The total number of references in an original article must not exceed 40 while in the review articles maximum limit is 100. References must be written double-spaced and numbered as they are cited in the text.
The references must be written in vancouver style. The style for all the types of references is given in the “Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals” at the website of International Committee of medical journal editors. www.icmje.org
List all authors when there are six or fewer. If there are more than six, list the first six followed by “et al”. The following is the sample reference for journal article.
Khan H, Din J, H Mohammad, M Sultan. Demography and Outcome of Guillain Barre Syndrome in NWFP. A study of 34 patients. J. Med. Sci. (Peshawar, Print) July 2006:14(2): 118-22.
Tables and Illustrations
Each of the tables and illustrations should be on a separate page, must have a title and be on a double space.
Figures should be professionally designed. Symbols, lettering and numbering should be clear and large enough to remain legible after the figure has been reduced to fit the width of a single column. The back of each figure should include the sequence number, the name of the author and the proper orientation (e.g. “top”). If photographs of patients are used, either
the subjects should be unidentifiable or their pictures must be accompanied by written permission to use the figure. Duplication of results given in tables and into figures must be avoided.
Ethics
When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (Institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Do not use patients names, initials, or hospital numbers especially in illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council is guide for, or any national law on the case and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Units of Measurements
Authors should express all measurements in conventional units, with System International (SI) units given in parentheses throughout the text.
Abbreviations
Except for units of measurements abbreviations are discouraged. The first time an abbreviation appears it should be preceded by the words for which it stands. However title and abstract must not contain any abbreviation.
Describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. When possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurements error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Avoid relying solely on statistical hypothesis testing, such as the use of ρ values, which fails to convey important quantitative information. Discuss the eligibility of experimental subjects. Describe the methods for and success of any binding of observations. Report complications of treatment. Give numbers of observations. Report losses to observation (such as dropouts from a clinical trial). Specify any computer programs used.
Put a general description of methods in the Methods Section. When data is summarised in the Results Section, specify the statistical methods used to analyse it. Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support avoid non technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as “random” (which implies a randomizing device) “normal” significant, “correlation”, and sample.
Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols.
Drug Names
Only generic names should be used.
Permissions
Materials taken from other sources must be accompanied by a written statement from both author an publisher giving permission to the journal for reproduction.
Case Report
Short report of cases, clinical experience, drug trials or adverse effects may be submitted. They must not exceed 500 words, 5 bibliographic references and one table or illustration. The report must contain genuinely new information. The format is title, abstract, introduction, case report, discussion, references.
Review and Action
All articles on receipt for publication are immediately acknowledged but that does not imply acceptance for publication.
Submitted manuscripts are reviewed for originality, relevance, statistical methods, significance, adequacy of documentation, reader interest and composition. Manuscripts not submitted according to the instructions will be returned to the author for correction prior to beginning the peer review process. All manuscripts considered suitable for review are evaluated by a minimum of two members of editorial board. The manuscripts is then sent to two or more than two reviewers who may take a couple of months time to review the manuscript. The ultimate authority to accept or reject the manuscript rests with the Editor.
Revised manuscripts are judged on the adequacy of responses to suggestions and criticisms made during the initial review. All accepted manuscripts are subject to editing for scientific accuracy and clarity by the office of the Editor. When the manuscripts is deemed fit for publication, letter of acceptance is issued to the author. No article is rejected unless similar comments are received from at least two reviewers
