Introduction:
Nowadays, many researches in the field of medicine are conducting all around the world and medical journalism is a way to share the results. In fact, dissemination of the related manuscripts can prevent the repetitive research or may even lead to conducting a better survey. Therefore high quality medical journals are considered as up-to-date resources for further investigations (1, 2). Medical journals are propagating their papers in various media including television programs, newspapers, internet websites and different social media. So they can influence the government policy makers, health-care professionals and even public (3-5). Moreover, most researchers hear about medical discoveries for the first time through medical journals and their related social media. So as well a high quality journal can help to improve medical science, a journal of poor quality can be damaging and distorting. Indeed, popular journals have the power of inventing a “communication storm” to draw attention to a certain topic. Thus they have to respect the accepted international principles to prevent spreading inaccurate and misleading data (6, 7). This paper aims to review the previous and current situation of medical journalism by focus on field of emergency medicine.
History of Medical Journalism:
Journalism was considered as an innovation in the field of medicine in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. It was a way to share the researchers' experiences. With progression of the technology, medical journalism became a new element of disseminating medical information and help to accelerate the processes of medical changes (8). History of scientific journalism started by “Journal des Scavans” in Paris, and “Philosophical Transactions” in London in 1665 and both are existing today, after three and a half centuries." Journal des Scavans" was edited by Denis de Sallo and included book reviews, while" Philosophical Transactions" was edited by Henry Oldenburg and involved scientific news (9). The first peer-review collection of medical articles was published by "Royal Society of Edinburgh" in 1731, in Scotland. It seems that it was the start point of the professional medical journalism. They named their journal as “Medical Essays and Observation” which was published in five volumes. But in 1737 they spread their scope and covered the art, philosophy and particularly natural knowledge as well and were identified as Philosophical Society of Edinburgh (10, 11). “Medical Repository” was the first American medical journal, which founded in 1797. It was published quarterly and ceased publication in 1824 after 27 years. Loss of institutional support, prohibitive costs and lack of wishful editors were probably influenced factors on the journal breakdown (12, 13). John Collins Warren along with James Jackson founded “New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery and Collateral Branches of Science" as a medical and philosophical journal in September 1811 and published the first issue in January 1812.
After a series of events and because of financial difficulties finally, the Massachusetts Medical Society purchased it in 1921 for 1 dollar and renamed it to “The New England Journal of Medicine” in 1928. This Journal that named briefly as NEJM, is still being published by the Massachusetts Medical Society and is among the most reputable and trust worthy peer-reviewed medical jour nals and the oldest continuously published ones (14). After nearly two consecutive centuries, today a beautiful motto is inscribed with the name of this journal, "Innovation Today for the Promise of Tomorrow". “The Lancet” is another senior medical journal that has rare reputation. It was established by an English surgeon named as Thomas Wakley in 1823 and has been owned by Elsevier since 1991. In 2013 Journal Citation Reports, The Lancet s impact factor was ranked second among general medical journals (39.207) after The New England Journal of Medicine (54.420). 2013 Journal Citation Report Science Edition, Thompson Reuters, 2014. Some other famous journals have contributed in shaping the history of medical journals. Their names, alongside with those previously mentioned and their date of inception are summarized in table 1.
Table 1.
The first medical journals in all around the world
| Journal name | Inception date |
|---|---|
| Medical Essays and Observation | 1731 |
| Medical Repository | 1797 |
| New England Journal of Medicine | 1812 |
| Lancet | 1823 |
| British Medical Journal | 1840 |
| JAMA | 1883 |
| Chinese Medical Journal | 1887 |
Journal of the American Medical Association
Medical Journalism in Iran:
Journalism in Iran was started by “Mirza Saleh Shirazi” who published “Kaghaz-e Akhbar” in 1837 in Tehran. Thereafter “Vaghaee-Etefaghieh ”was started to publish in 1851, in Tehran that included some medical news and public health topics along with the others(15). Based on available resources, it seems that “Hefz-o-Sehheh” which was published by the Society of Public Health (Anjoman-e Hefz-o-Sehheh) in 1901, was the first medical journal in Iran. Dr. Ali Asghar Nafisi was the first physician to establish a medical journal named as “Hefz-o-Sehheh” in 1906; also had the same name but differ from that published in 1901."Iranian Ministry of Health and Charity Affairs" (Vezarat-e Sehhyeh Va Omuor-e Kheiryyeh) started to publish the earliest state medical journal in 1921, named as "Sehhyeh and Omuor-e Kheiryyeh". As an innovation, the physicians were invited to submit their papers in the first issue of this journal (15). There were some other medical journals before 1934, the date of foundation of Tehran University Medical School, which may be considered as a revolution in medicine and medical journalism in Iran. Their names and date of inception are summarized in table 2. Based on the Iranian medical journals database, www.research.ac.ir/journals, today 347 active medical journals are available in Iran. Table 3 shows the baseline features of these journals.
Table 2.
The first Medical journals in Iran
| Journal name | Date of inception | Founder |
|---|---|---|
| Hefz-o-Sehheh | 1901 | Society of Public Health |
| Hefz-o-Sehheh | 1906 | Dr. Ali Asghar Nafisi |
| Tebabat | 1908 | Mirza Ebrahim Khan |
| Sehhat | 1909 | Seyyed Hossein Khan Edalat |
| Tebb-e Mossavar | 1916 | Mozayyan-ol-Soltan |
| Tebbi | 1919 | Mohammad Khan Alim-0-Doweleh |
| TebbKonuni | 1920 | Dr. Fatah Ali Khan |
| Sehhyeh and Omuore Kheiryyeh | 1921 | Ministry of Sehhyeh &Omuore Kheiryyeh |
| Tebabat | 1922 | Mirza Ahmad Khan |
| TebbJadid | 1923 | Unknown |
| Sehhat | 1924 | Unknown |
| Red Lion and Sun Journal | 1925 | Red Sun and Lion Society |
| Nedaye- Sehhat | 1927 | Dr. Seyyed Razi Sehhat |
| DavaSazi | 1927 | Dr. Fatolla Farrahi |
| Sehhat Nemaye Iran | 1933 | Dr. Mohammad Ali Totiya |
Table 3.
Baseline features of Iranian medical journals
| Characteristics | n (%) |
|---|---|
| Indexing | |
| Web of Science | 22 (5.1) |
| Pubmed | 42 (9.8) |
| Scopus | 103 (24) |
| Embase | 111 (25.9) |
| Unknown | 319 (74.2) |
| Language | |
| English | 232 (54) |
| Persian | 198 (46) |
| Frequency | |
| Weekly | 2 (0.5) |
| Monthly | 21 (4.9) |
| Bimonthly | 37 (8.6) |
| Quarterly | 255 (59.3) |
| Biannually | 30 (7) |
| Annually | 2 (0.5) |
| Rank | |
| Scientific/research | 292 (67.6) |
Emergency Medicine Journals:
On September 21, 1979 by positive vote of American Board of Medical Specialties, Emergency Medicine was introduced as a medical specialty to the world. Emergency Medicine is the specialty that due to its nature faced with a variety of patients, so was able to convince medical journals to pay special attention to it. The story does not end here and special journals dedicated to the emergency medicine. Top 10 active journals in the field of emergency medicine are summarized in table 4.
Table 4.
Top 10 Emergency Medicine journals
| Rank | Title | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resuscitation | Ireland |
| 2 | Annals of Emergency Medicine | United States |
| 3 | Academic Emergency Medicine | United Kingdom |
| 4 | Shock | United States |
| 5 | Prehospital Emergency Care | United Kingdom |
| 6 | Current Heart Failure Reports | United States |
| 7 | Congestive Heart Failure | United Kingdom |
| 8 | Injury | United Kingdom |
| 9 | Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine | United Kingdom |
| 10 | Critical care and resuscitation | Australia |
Iranian Emergency Medicine Journals:
Iranian Society of Emergency Medicine (ISEM) was developed in 2002. It is obvious that Emergency medicine is a young field In Iran and despite abundant oppositions continues to grow and progress. Despite the youth field in Iran, many of Iranian journals have included this topic in their respective fields (table 5).
Table 5.
Iranian Emergency Medicine Journals
| Journal Name | Since | Frequency | PubMed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journal of Military Medicine | 1999 | Quarterly | - |
| Trauma Monthly | 2006 | Quarterly | √ |
| Journal of Injury and Violence Research | 2009 | Biannually | √ |
| Archive of Trauma Research | 2012 | Quarterly | √ |
| Bulletin of Emergency and Trauma | 2013 | Quarterly | - |
| Journal of Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention | 2013 | Quarterly | - |
| Emergency | 2013 | Quarterly | √ |
| Journal of Emergency Practice and Trauma | 2014 | Quarterly | - |
| Iranian Journal of Emergency Medicine | 2014 | Quarterly | - |
Our frequent problems in medical journalism:
Frequent problems and obstacles in progression and qualifying of medical journalism could be categorized to five headings: problems related to authors, reviewers, editors, editor-in-chief, and managing editor (Table 6). Despite of old history of medical journalism in the world, it is recently mentioned as a professional topic in Iran. Solving the above-mentioned problems should be considered as the most important way for improving and qualifying the medical journalism in Iran. Training courses of professional medical journalism for editorial boards, public and mandatory scientific writing educations for medical students and education of critical appraisal skills for reviewers can be helpful in this regard.
Table 6.
Frequent problems in medical journalism
| Problems related to authors |
|
| Problems related to reviewers |
|
| Problems related to editors |
|
| Problems related to editor in chief |
|
| Problems related to managing editor |
|
Conclusion:
Historically, Iranian population have great defect in documentation of their findings and mostly rely on their memory. Anything that is not written will be forgotten and anything that is forgotten, never been existed. So write to persist the knowledge, never late to mend.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Dr. Saeid Safari, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran for his valuable cooperation.
Conflict of interest:
None
Funding support:
None
Authors’ contributions:
All authors passed four criteria for authorship contribution based on recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
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