GENERAL GUIDELINES
Ethics of Publication
Manuscripts must conform to the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE). Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and to these instructions.
Authorship is not based on obtaining funding, offering advice, or similar. Persons who contribute such may be mentioned in the Acknowledgments. Authors must take responsibility for at least one component of the work, be able to identify who is responsible for each other component and be confident in their co-authors’ integrity.
The contributions of each author must be listed on the Title Page (literature search, data collection, study design, data analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript review).
Any editorial contributions made by outside organizations, persons, funding bodies, or persons employed by funding sources must be acknowledged on the Title Page.
All authors must:
- Give consent to submission and publication of the work
- Have participated in the research and in the shaping of the manuscript
- Have read and approved the manuscript
- Be able to publicly discuss and defend the manuscript’s content
Duplicate Publication and Plagiarism
The manuscript must not have been previously published elsewhere and must not be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere, including online. If any part of the material (other than a brief abstract submitted to a national or international meeting) has been published or is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere, you must provide copies of all related material at the time of submission.
The journal checks for plagiarism for all submitted manuscripts.
Conflict of Interest
We are committed to publishing the highest-quality research and reliable, authoritative review articles that are free from commercial influence.
The conflict of interest policy is consistent with that of JAMA, ICMJE, CSE and WAME. Disclosures must be made at the time of submission and must be indicated on the title page. Please list any study sponsorship or grants
A disclosure form might be needed if the manuscript is accepted for publication.
Conflict of interest (COI) Policy
Ethics of Investigation
All studies that include human subjects must indicate in the Methods section that approval was received from the appropriate local institutional review board (IRB) or Ethics Committee. This requirement applies to retrospective studies, prospective studies, quality improvement projects, and surveys. Human research subjects may be hospital patients, healthy volunteers, clinicians, or students. It is important to note that the IRB, not the investigator, determines whether a study is exempt from full review.
Authors must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This applies to any information (e.g. text, photo, or radiograph) that could potentially identify a patient or subject. Authors must provide written consent from the individual, next of kin, or guardian.
All studies involving animals must indicate in the Methods section that approval was received from the local IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) or that the research was conducted in accordance with a national guideline (Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals).