POLICIES
Focus and Scope
UOJM is an international peer-reviewed journal led and published by the students of the Faculty of Medicine. We welcome submissions in a variety of areas in biomedical research and feature original research, review articles, news and commentaries, case reports and opinion pieces. Our articles are written in both English and French, and represent the only bilingual medical journal in Canada.
Section Policies
Research
- Definition: reports of original research conducted by students in areas of: basic science, clinical/translational research, and epidemiology
- Goal: present a research question, the study design used to investigate the question, the main findings and interpretation of findings for a general medicine audience
- Components: abstract, introduction (including research question and hypothesis), materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, references, disclaimers, and tables and figures
- Abstract should be divided into the following headings: Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusion (<250 words)
- < 3000 words excluding abstract, figures, tables, references
Review & Clinical practice
- Goal: to critically review a body of literature, identify gaps and limitations in the current research or clinical guideline, and suggest future directions or clinical practice recommendations
- Specific Components: abstract, citation selection criteria, data sources that are as current as possible, tables and figures are recommended, references
- It is the author’s responsibility to ensure the work of others is reported in an accurate fashion and controversial ideas are discussed objectively and impartially
- A review should summarize a broad scope of work as opposed to predominantly that of a single research group
- < 3000 words excluding abstract, tables, figures, references
Case report & Elective report
Case Report
- Definition: describes a notable clinical encounter with unique features
- Goal: provide an overview of a previously unreported or rare: clinical condition, observation of recognized disease, use of imaging or diagnostic tests, treatment of a recognized disease, or complications of a procedure
- Components: introduction to case, history of presenting illness, relevant signs and symptoms, diagnostic tests, discussion of potential treatment modalities, definitive diagnosis, pathophysiology of condition, aspects of its presentation and history, and ethical issues if applicable
- Requirements: patient consent, at least one author must be the patient’s attending physician
- < 1500 words
- Example of a case report can be found at BMJ (http://casereports.bmj.com/content/2011/bcr.02.2011.3836.full)
- Definition: a summary of a student’s reflections and impressions of his or her experience during an elective
- Goal: increase student exposure to a variety of medical specialties locally and internationally, highlight clinical experiences and communicate feedback regarding the program
- < 1000 words
news and letters
These submissions do not require abstracts News Articles Highlight current events relevant to science and medicine covering a range of topics including: medical policy & economics, discoveries & innovations in medicine, technological advances and medical education < 1000 words Letter to the Editor Meant for readers to express their opinion in response to any articles published in past issues < 500 words
Commentary
- Commentaries are a non-technical platform for intellectual dialogue and analysis that can address any noteworthy topic in medicine, public health, research, ethics, health policy, health law, etc. through a variety of means: perspectives, book review, policy forum, opinion pieces
- Can be subjective by drawing on personal experiences or objective by referring to published data but do not contain primary data
- A 75-100 word abstract is required, but not included in the total word count
- The types of commentaries can be as follows
- Discuss recent news and developments relevant to medicine (policies, economics, scientific discoveries & innovations, technological advances, education, etc.), explaining its potential significance
- Can express a personal viewpoint
- < 2000 words
- A personal, anecdotal, and thought-provoking view on controversial issues surrounding science and medicine faced by medical students, residents, practicing physicians, policymakers, and recipients of health care
- Designed to target a wide audience including readers from non-medical disciplines
- < 1500 words
Interview
- Definition: Q&A style report highlighting the successful career of a medical professional who has contributed significantly to their field
- Goal: describe a medical professional’s contributions to their field, their educational and professional background, reflections on their experiences, and advice for students interested in pursuing a similar career
- Note: The selection of interviewers and the write-up of the interview transcription are done by the editorial staff. For interview inquiries, contact the Editor(s)-in-Chief.
Humanities
Editorial
Articles written from the UOJM Editorial staff
Peer Review Process
UOJM employs a double-blind peer review to minimize bias in reviewing submissions. Each submission is reviewed by at least 3 reviewers who evaluate the significance, scientific validity and originality. Reviewers are students and/or faculty members at the University of Ottawa or other Canadian institutions. The turnaround time for a review is 2 weeks.
1. Privacy
Please note that all information submitted as part of this document will be confidential and will only be used for the review process of UOJM, unless as otherwise stated to be necessary in the final publication.
2. Conflicts of Interest
To ensure high level of integrity and minimal bias in the works presented in the UOJM, authors must disclose and declare all potential conflicts of interest. These include, but are not limited to, all personal assistance, financial relationships and sources of funding leading to the submission, and all organizations that could potentially profit or lose through the publication of the manuscript. Authors must explicitly state all potential conflicts in a specific section as part of the submission to the UOJM, and provide additional documentation if necessary. Investigators are also expected to disclose these conflicts to all participants in the study, and should state whether they have done so in their manuscript. The declaring of conflicts does not exclude a submission from publication, but would be taken into consideration during the review process to ensure transparency. All declared information remains confidential. Upon approval of a manuscript, the editors will discuss with the authors on ways of disclosing these conflicts in the publication.
3. Copyright
Authors publishing in the UOJM retain copyright of their articles, including all the drafts and the final published version in the journal. While UOJM does not retain any rights to the articles submitted, by agreeing to publish in UOJM, authors are granting the journal right of first publication and distribution rights of their articles. Authors are free to submit their works to other publications, including journals, institutional repositories or books, with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in UOJM. Copies of UOJM are distributed both in print and online, and all materials published will be in the public domain. The journal holds no legal responsibility as to how these materials will be used by the public.
4. Informed consent from patients Patients have rights to their privacy and clinical information, and efforts will be made to conceal patients’ identities in all publications. Clinical information pertaining to a patient, or identifying information including names, hospital numbers, or images of body parts, would not be published unless they are deemed essential for a particular study and consent has been obtained from the patient. However, patients should recognize that anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Prior to informed consent, the patients must be shown the manuscript to be published. Informed consent should be stated in the published article. 5. The
Agreement Form for Publication Once the article has been accepted for publication, all authors must complete and submit the Agreement Form below: Agreement Form
1. Privacy
Please note that all information submitted as part of this document will be confidential and will only be used for the review process of UOJM, unless as otherwise stated to be necessary in the final publication.
2. Conflicts of Interest
To ensure high level of integrity and minimal bias in the works presented in the UOJM, authors must disclose and declare all potential conflicts of interest. These include, but are not limited to, all personal assistance, financial relationships and sources of funding leading to the submission, and all organizations that could potentially profit or lose through the publication of the manuscript. Authors must explicitly state all potential conflicts in a specific section as part of the submission to the UOJM, and provide additional documentation if necessary. Investigators are also expected to disclose these conflicts to all participants in the study, and should state whether they have done so in their manuscript. The declaring of conflicts does not exclude a submission from publication, but would be taken into consideration during the review process to ensure transparency. All declared information remains confidential. Upon approval of a manuscript, the editors will discuss with the authors on ways of disclosing these conflicts in the publication.
3. Copyright
Authors publishing in the UOJM retain copyright of their articles, including all the drafts and the final published version in the journal. While UOJM does not retain any rights to the articles submitted, by agreeing to publish in UOJM, authors are granting the journal right of first publication and distribution rights of their articles. Authors are free to submit their works to other publications, including journals, institutional repositories or books, with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in UOJM. Copies of UOJM are distributed both in print and online, and all materials published will be in the public domain. The journal holds no legal responsibility as to how these materials will be used by the public.
4. Informed consent from patients Patients have rights to their privacy and clinical information, and efforts will be made to conceal patients’ identities in all publications. Clinical information pertaining to a patient, or identifying information including names, hospital numbers, or images of body parts, would not be published unless they are deemed essential for a particular study and consent has been obtained from the patient. However, patients should recognize that anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Prior to informed consent, the patients must be shown the manuscript to be published. Informed consent should be stated in the published article. 5. The
Agreement Form for Publication Once the article has been accepted for publication, all authors must complete and submit the Agreement Form below: Agreement Form
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Archiving
This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More…
