Emergency (****); * (*): *-* This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Copyright © 2015 Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved. Downloaded from: www.jemerg.com 83 Emergency (2015); 3 (3): 83-86 EDITORIAL Medical Journalism and Emergency Medicine Saeed Safari1, Alireza Baratloo1*, Mahmoud Yousefifard2 1. Department of Emergency Medicine, Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 2. Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran Iran. *Corresponding Author: Alireza Baratloo; Department of Emergency Medicine, Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Postal code: 1989934148; Tel: +989122884364; Fax: +982122721155; Email: alirezabaratloo@yahoo.com Received: May 2015; Accepted: May 2015 Introduction: owadays, many researches in the field of medi- cine are conducting all around the world and medical journalism is a way to share the results. In fact, dissemination of the related manuscripts can pre- vent the repetitive research or may even lead to conduct- ing a better survey. Therefore high quality medical jour- nals are considered as up-to-date resources for further investigations (1, 2). Medical journals are propagating their papers in various media including television pro- grams, newspapers, internet websites and different so- cial media. So they can influence the government policy makers, health-care professionals and even public (3-5). Moreover, most researchers hear about medical discov- eries 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 qual- ity can be damaging and distorting. Indeed, popular jour- nals 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 situ- ation of medical journalism by focus on field of emer- gency medicine. History of Medical Journalism: Journalism was considered as an innovation in the field of medicine in late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- tury. It was a way to share the researchers' experiences. With progression of the technology, medical journalism became a new element of disseminating medical infor- mation and help to accelerate the processes of medical changes (8). History of scientific journalism started by “Journal des Scavans” in Paris, and “Philosophical Trans- actions” 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 med- ical journalism. They named their journal as “Medical Es- says and Observation” which was published in five vol- umes. 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 influ- enced 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 jour- nal in September 1811 and published the first issue in January 1812. After a series of events and because of financial difficul- ties finally, the Massachusetts Medical Society purchased it in 1921 for 1 dollar and renamed it to “The New Eng- land 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 N 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_journal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collins_Warren http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collins_Warren http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Medical_Society This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Copyright © 2015 Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved. Downloaded from: www.jemerg.com Safari et al 84 reputable and trust worthy peer-reviewed medical jour nals and the oldest continuously published ones (14). Af- ter nearly two consecutive centuries, today a beautiful motto is inscribed with the name of this journal, "Inno- vation Today for the Promise of Tomorrow". “The Lan- cet” is another senior medical journal that has rare rep- utation. It was established by an English surgeon named as Thomas Wakley in 1823 and has been owned by Else- vier 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 Jour- nal 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. 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 es- tablish a medical journal named as “Hefz-o-Sehheh” in 1906; also had the same name but differ from that pub- lished 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 in- ception 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 jour- nals 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) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_journal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_journal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wakley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_Citation_Reports http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_England_Journal_of_Medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_England_Journal_of_Medicine This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). Copyright © 2015 Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved. Downloaded from: www.jemerg.com 85 Emergency (2015); 3 (3): 83-86 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. Emer- gency 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. Iranian Emergency Medicine Journals: Iranian Society of Emergency Medicine (ISEM) was de- veloped 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). 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 con- sidered 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 educa- tions for medical students and education of critical ap- praisal skills for reviewers can be helpful in this regard. Conclusion: Historically, Iranian population have great defect in doc- umentation 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 contribu- tion based on recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. 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 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 - http://isem.ir/ This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0). 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Table 6: Frequent problems in medical journalism Problems related to authors  Low quality articles  Rejected manuscript from other journals  Nonprofessional authors  Submission errors  Bad structures  No appropriate reply to reviewer Problems related to reviewers  Perfect review for bad articles  Poor review for good articles  Walking on a narrow edge of decision Problems related to editors  Solitary Associate Editors  Non-strategic leaders  High expectations from primitive system  Play in separate teams  Understanding of real position and Edi- tors-in- Chief mission Problems related to editor in chief  To be or not to be? That’s the question  Unrealistic target  Leader with no follower  Setting time and human resource-oriented strategies  Poor cooperation with system  Not having rules  Decision making Problems related to managing editor  Low scientific relation with journal title  Unfamiliar with strategic planning  Unfamiliar with potential power of the role  Unable to connect all editors predefined strategy  Lack of communication skills  Monitoring of the play with information technology based modalities  Poor time table  Right plans will be wrong in action