 |
|
Year 2000 Archives of Family Medicine
Totally Online, More Features, Now Brought to You Monthly!
Arch Fam Med. 2000;9:30.
EXCITEMENT IS the word for our continuing Archives of Family Medicine transition as we move into the next century. The journal began in 1992, the first new journal published by the American Medical Association since 1926. Since then, we have been refining and adding to the types of information we provide. The Archives of Family Medicine will become a monthly journal starting in January 2000. I am very happy about this because we receive many useful manuscripts, and I prefer to accept than to reject good papers.
Our motto is Clinically Relevant, Academically Sound. We have original contributions (research articles), editorials (from the group of editors or requests to discuss a specific article), review articles, practice management articles, special articles (on topics pertinent to family physicians but not specifically research or reviews), brief reports, book/software reviews, letters to the editor, and a Living in Medicine section. In addition to these ongoing types of articles published since 1992, we have added other features:
- clinical pearls (short summaries of clinically relevant research from other journals)
- SOAPs (solutions to often-asked problems, based on questions that arise in the family physician office, with research- and evidence-based answers)
- cover pictures of pertinent health problems
- abstracts of interest from other ARCHIVES journals
- The Readers Ask (questions from the readers sent to us by way of the continuing medical education answer cards with answers from the authors)
- comments from primary authors on research articles
- collaboration with major JAMA theme issues
- increased numbers of therapeutic drug reviews
- patient commentaries.
Last year we added continuing medical education questions and credit. Feedback from readers on our articles from the returned cards is helpful to our editorial board and also indicates a high level of enthusiasm for the types and content of the articles that are published.
In addition to these features, there is other great news:
- The Archives of Family Medicine will be full-text online (free) through March 2000 (http://www.archfammed.com). This site permits full-text searches, indexes, and the ability to download and print information of interest to you. There are links to related articles, other ARCHIVES journals, and JAMA. In addition, an e-mail alert service is available.
- For a new journal, our ratings are wonderful. Journals are rated against many standards. In 1998, we were rated for the first time on some new factors from the International Sensitivity Index Journal Citation Reports. These reports indicate that we have achieved a level of respect among publishing authors in a short amount of time of which we are all proud.
- Articles from Archives of Family Medicine have been widely quoted in the lay press, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, US News and World Report, Time, USA Today, and many other publications. You will need to read the ARCHIVES just to stay ahead of patient questions arising from the morning paper.
As editor, I have come to discover, or perhaps more appropriately termed, rediscover, just how much variation in thought and medical practice occurs within the field of family practice. For example, on the same article, we have received comments that one reader saw the entity every day in practice and was glad to finally see something in print, while another reader said it was too rare to have been considered for publication. What is common in one state or region may not be in another. Because of this, we have sought to bring a balance of material to the journal. We have achieved a good mix of research and reviews, psychosocial and biomedical, family physician and nonfamily physician authors, and both common and unusual clinical topics, to reach our decidedly eclectic audience of primarily family physicians. Our goal is to bring you the broad scope of family medicine in a clinically practical, academically sound way.
We appreciate your readership and your feedback. Keep those letters and comments coming.
Marjorie A. Bowman, MD, MPA
Editor
|
