The BMJ facts for kids
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Former name
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Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, British Medical Journal, BMJ |
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Abbreviated title (ISO 4)
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BMJ |
| Discipline | Medicine |
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Kamran Abbasi |
| Publication details | |
| Publisher |
BMA (United Kingdom)
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Publication history
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1840–present |
| Frequency | Weekly |
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Open access
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Immediate, research articles only |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License |
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Impact factor
(2022) |
105.7 |
| Indexing | |
| ISSN | 0959-8138 (print) 1756-1833 (web) |
| LCCN | 97640199 |
| CODEN | DXRA5 |
| OCLC no. | 32595642 |
| JSTOR | 09598138 |
| Links | |
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The BMJ is a very old and respected medical magazine. It comes out every week. Doctors and scientists write articles for it, and other experts check them carefully before they are published. This process is called peer review. The magazine is published by the British Medical Association (BMA), which is a group that supports doctors in the UK.
The BMJ has been around for a long time. It started in 1840! Its name has changed a few times. It was first called the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. Then it became the British Medical Journal, and later just BMJ. In 2014, its name changed to The BMJ. The main editor of The BMJ right now is Kamran Abbasi.
Contents
History of The BMJ
The magazine first started on October 3, 1840. It was called the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. It quickly became popular with doctors around the world. This was because it published important new research and interesting reports about medical cases.
The first editors of The BMJ were P. Hennis Green and Robert Streeten. Green was a teacher who focused on children's diseases. Streeten was a member of the group that started the magazine.
Early Issues and Goals
The very first issue of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal was 16 pages long. It had a few simple pictures. The longest parts were the editors' introduction and a report from a medical meeting. It also included news about medical laws, book reviews, and notes from doctors. It cost 7 pence, which was a lot back then!
The editors, Green and Streeten, had two main goals for the magazine. First, they wanted to help the medical profession grow, especially for doctors outside of big cities. Second, they wanted to share medical knowledge with everyone. They also wanted to make sure doctors were respected for their important work.
Name Changes and Key Discoveries
In 1842, the magazine's name changed to the Provincial Medical Journal and Retrospect of the Medical Sciences. But two years later, it went back to its original name. In 1857, it finally became The BMJ after combining with another medical magazine.
The BMJ was important for publishing some big medical breakthroughs. It published the first study where patients were randomly put into groups to test a treatment. This is a very important way to do medical research. The magazine also published key articles that showed how smoking causes health problems like lung cancer.
For many years, The BMJ's main competitor was The Lancet, another UK-based medical magazine. But now, The BMJ also competes with other big medical journals from around the world. These include The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
What's Inside The BMJ
The BMJ strongly supports evidence-based medicine. This means that medical decisions should be based on the best scientific evidence available. The magazine publishes many types of articles. These include new research, reviews of medical topics, updates on medical advances, and opinions from experts.
Christmas Edition Fun
Every year, just before Christmas, The BMJ publishes a special "Christmas Edition." This edition is famous for its funny research articles. These articles use serious scientific methods to study less serious medical questions. The results are often very amusing and are reported by news outlets everywhere!
How Articles Are Chosen
The BMJ uses an open peer review system. This means that when you submit an article, you will know who reviewed your work. About half of the new research articles are rejected right away. The articles that are chosen for review are then sent to outside experts. These experts give their opinions on how important and suitable the article is. Finally, a committee of editors makes the final decision. Less than 7% of original research articles are accepted for publication.
In early 2021, The BMJ started charging money to publish obituaries (notices about people who have died). Many people, including the British Medical Association, were upset by this. This was especially true because many medical staff were dying from COVID-19 at the time. The BMJ explained its decision, but then changed its mind and stopped charging by the end of the month.
Special Features
Rapid Recommendations
Sometimes, it can be hard to keep up with all the new medical advice. To help with this, The BMJ created "BMJ Rapid Recommendations." These are reliable guides that focus on the most important and urgent medical topics.
Rapid Responses
The BMJ has a special section on its website called "Rapid Responses." This is like an online forum where people can write comments or letters about the articles. These comments are checked to make sure they are appropriate. Once a comment is published, it cannot be removed or changed. By 2013, over 88,500 rapid responses had been posted!
How Important is The BMJ?
In 2022, The BMJ's impact factor was 105.7. The impact factor is a number that shows how often articles from a journal are cited by other researchers. This number ranked The BMJ fourth among general medical journals.
However, The BMJ also signed an agreement in 2013 called the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (Dora Agreement). This agreement says that journals should not focus too much on their impact factor. Instead, they should look at many different ways to measure how important a journal is.
Reading The BMJ Online
The BMJ first went completely online in 1995. All its past issues were put on the internet. Besides the articles from the print magazine, the website also has extra materials for research articles, more news stories, and electronic letters to the editors.
From 1999, all content on The BMJ's website was free to read. But in 2006, they started asking for a subscription fee for some parts. New research articles are still free. But other valuable content, like clinical reviews and editorials, require a subscription. The BMJ does allow people from poorer countries to access everything for free through a program called HINARI.
In 2008, The BMJ announced that its research articles would become open access. This means anyone can read them for free. However, you still need a subscription to read other types of articles.
Different Versions of The BMJ
The BMJ is mainly an online magazine. The website has all the articles. But there are also several print versions. These print versions are made for different groups of readers and have different articles or shorter versions of articles. They also have different advertisements.
The print versions include:
- General Practice (weekly): This is for family doctors.
- Clinical Research (weekly): This is for doctors who work in hospitals.
- Academic (monthly): This is for universities, researchers, and medical teachers.
The BMJ also publishes versions in other countries and languages. These include editions in Spanish (for Argentina), Greek, Romanian, Chinese, and a Middle Eastern version in English. There is also Student BMJ, which is an online resource for medical students and new doctors. It publishes a print edition once a year in September.
Other Ways to Stay Updated
The BMJ offers free email updates to help you stay informed:
- This Week In The BMJ: A weekly email with the table of contents, latest research, videos, and comments.
- Editor's choice: The editor, Kamran Abbasi, picks a selection of the latest research, news, and educational articles each week.
- Today on bmj.com: A daily alert with links to a few articles published in The BMJ in the last 24 hours.
Editors of The BMJ
Here is a list of the people who have been editors of The BMJ over the years:
- P. Hennis Green and Robert Streeten (1840–1844)
- Robert Streeten (1844–1849)
- W.H. Ranking and J.H. Walsh (1849–1853)
- John Rose Cormack (1853–1855)
- Andrew Wynter (1855–1861)
- William Orlando Markham (1861–1866)
- Ernest Hart (1866–1869)
- Jonathan Hutchinson (1869–1871)
- Ernest Hart (1871–1898)
- Sir Dawson Williams (1898–1928)
- Norman Gerald Horner (1928–1946)
- Hugh Clegg (1947–1965)
- Martin Ware (1966–1975)
- Stephen Lock (1975–1991)
- Richard Smith (1991–2004)
- Kamran Abbasi (Acting E-i-C) (2004– 2005 )
- Fiona Godlee (2005–2021)
- Kamran Abbasi (2022– )
Images for kids
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Cover of the 1st issue of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal
See also
In Spanish: The BMJ para niños
