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''The BMJ'' is a weekly
peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
medical trade journal, published by the
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
the
British Medical Association The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association's headquar ...
(BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Originally called the ''British Medical Journal'', the title was officially shortened to ''BMJ'' in 1988, and then changed to ''The BMJ'' in 2014. The journal is published by
BMJ Publishing Group Ltd BMJ (branded as BMJ Group until 2013) is a British publisher of medical journals. Established in 1840, the company is owned by the British Medical Association. Publications * 1840: '' Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal'' (later renamed t ...
, a
subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...
of the
British Medical Association The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association's headquar ...
(BMA). The
editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
of ''The BMJ'' is
Kamran Abbasi Kamran Abbasi is the editor-in-chief of the ''British Medical Journal'' (''BMJ''), a physician, visiting professor at the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London, editor of the ''Journal of the Royal Society of Med ...
, who was appointed in January 2022.


History

The journal began publishing on 3 October 1840 as the ''Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal'' and quickly attracted the attention of physicians around the world through its publication of high-impact original research articles and unique case reports. The ''BMJ''s first editors were
P. Hennis Green Erinensis was the pseudonym used by Peter Hennis Green (1803–1870), an Irish physician who edited medical journals and wrote many columns for ''The Lancet'' from the 1820s to the 1840s. Life Green was born about 1803 in County Cork, Ireland, t ...
, lecturer on the diseases of children at the
Hunterian School of Medicine Great Windmill Street is a thoroughfare running north–south in Soho, London, crossed by Shaftesbury Avenue. The street has had a long association with music and entertainment, most notably the Windmill Theatre, and is now home to the Ripley ...
, who also was its founder and Robert Streeten of
Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
, a member of the
Provincial Medical and Surgical Association The Provincial Medical and Surgical Association (PMSA) was founded by Sir Charles Hastings on 19 July 1832 at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary. It was initially established for the sharing of scientific and medical knowled ...
council. The first issue of the ''Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal'' (''PMSJ'') was 16 pages long and contained three simple woodcut illustrations. The longest items were the editors' introductory editorial and a report of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association's Eastern Branch. Other pages included a condensed version of
Henry Warburton Henry Warburton (12 November 1784 – 16 September 1858) was an English merchant and politician, and also an enthusiastic amateur scientist. Elected as Member of Parliament for Bridport, Dorset, in the 1826 general election, he held the seat fo ...
's medical reform bill, book reviews, clinical papers, and case notes. There were columns of advertisements. Inclusive of stamp duty it cost 7d, a price which remained until 1844. In their main article, Green and Streeten noted that they had "received as many advertisements (in proportion to the quantity of letter press) for our first number, as the most popular Medical Journal, (''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'') after seventeen years of existence." In their introductory editorial and later statements, Green and Streeten defined "the main objects of promotion of which the ''Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal'' is established". Summarised, there were two clear main objectives: the advancement of the profession, especially in the provinces and the dissemination of medical knowledge. Green and Streeten also expressed interest in promoting public well-being as well as maintaining 'medical practitioners, as a class in that rank of society which, by their intellectual acquirements, by their general moral character, and by the importance of the duties entrusted to them, they are justly entitled to hold'. In April 1842 the journal was retitled the ''Provincial Medical Journal and Retrospect of the Medical Sciences'', but two years later reverted to the ''PMSJ'' under the sole editorship of Streeten. It was then in 1857 that the ''BMJ'' first appeared when the ''PMSJ'' was merged with the ''Associated Medical Journal'' (Vols. 1 to 4; 1853 to 1856), which had itself evolved from the ''London Medical Journal'' (Vols. 1 to 4; 1849 to 1852) under the editorship of
John Rose Cormack Sir John Rose Cormack FRSE FRCP (1 March 1815 – 13 May 1882) was a Scottish physician and medical journalist. He established several notable British journals: the ''Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science''; the ''London Medical Journ ...
. ''The BMJ'' published the first centrally randomised controlled trial. The journal also carried the seminal papers on the causal effects of smoking on health and lung cancer and other causes of death in relation to smoking. For a long time, the journal's sole competitor was ''The Lancet'', also based in the UK, but with increasing globalisation, ''The BMJ'' has faced tough competition from other medical journals, particularly ''
The New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. His ...
'' and the ''
Journal of the American Medical Association ''The Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of bio ...
''.


Journal content

''The BMJ'' is an advocate of
evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of t ...
. It publishes research as well as clinical reviews, recent medical advances, editorial perspectives, among others. A special "Christmas Edition" is published annually on the Friday before Christmas. This edition is known for research articles which apply a serious academic approach to investigating less serious medical questions. The results are often humorous and widely reported by the mainstream media. ''The BMJ'' has an
open peer review Open peer review is the various possible modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. The three most common modifications to which the term is applied are: # Open identities: Authors and reviewers are aware of each other's ident ...
system, wherein authors are told who reviewed their manuscript. About half the original articles are rejected after review in-house. Manuscripts chosen for peer review are first reviewed by external experts, who comment on the importance and suitability for publication, before the final decision on a manuscript is made by the editorial ("hanging") committee. The acceptance rate is less than 7% for original research articles. At the beginning of February 2021 the BMJ introduced a charge of £299 for publishing obituaries. This was widely criticised on social media, including by the British Medical Association, due to the large number of medical staff being killed by COVID-19. The decision was explained, but reversed, by the end of the month.


Rapid Recommendations

In response to the many problems with traditional
medical guideline Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practi ...
s, the journal introduced ''BMJ Rapid Recommendations'', a series of trustworthy guidelines focused on the most pressing medical issues.


Rapid Responses

''The BMJ'' publishes most e-letters to the journal on its Web site under the heading Rapid Responses, organised as a fully moderated Internet forum. Comments are screened for unacceptable content such as libel or obscenity, and contributors may not remove or edit contributions once published. As of January 2013, 88,500 rapid responses had been posted on the BMJ website.


Indexing and citations

''The BMJ'' is included in the major indexes
PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
,
MEDLINE MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...
,
EBSCO EBSCO Industries is an American company founded in 1944 by Elton Bryson Stephens Sr. and headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The ''EBSCO'' acronym is based on ''Elton Bryson Stephens Company''. EBSCO Industries is a diverse company of over 40 ...
, and the
Science Citation Index The Science Citation Index Expanded – previously entitled Science Citation Index – is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and created by Eugene Garfield. It was officially launched in 1964 and ...
. The journal has long criticised the misuse of the impact factor to award grants and recruit researchers by academic institutions. The five journals that cited ''The BMJ'' most often in 2008 were (in order of descending citation frequency) ''The BMJ'', ''
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews The Cochrane Library (named after Archie Cochrane) is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systemat ...
'', ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'', ''
BMC Public Health ''BMC Public Health'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal that covers epidemiology of disease and various aspects of public health. The journal was established in 2001 and is published by BioMed Central. Abstracting and indexing Th ...
'', and ''
BMC Health Services Research ''BMC Health Services Research'' is an open access healthcare journal, which covers research on the subject of health services. It was established in 2001 and is published by BioMed Central. Abstracting and indexing ''BMC Health Services Rese ...
''. In the same year the five journals most frequently cited by articles published in ''The BMJ'' were ''The BMJ'', ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'', ''
The New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. His ...
'', ''
Journal of the American Medical Association ''The Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of bio ...
'' and ''
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews The Cochrane Library (named after Archie Cochrane) is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systemat ...
''.


Impact

In the 2021 ''
Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collect ...
'', published in 2022, ''The BMJ's''
impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ...
was 96.216. ranking it fourth among general medical journals.2015 Journal Citation Report Science Edition, Thompson Reuters, 2016. However, ''The BMJ'' in 2013 reported that it had become a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (commonly known as the Dora Agreement), which deprecates the inappropriate use of journal impact factors and urges journal publishers to "greatly reduce the emphasis on the journal impact factor as a promotional tool, ideally by ceasing to promote the impact factor or by presenting it in the context of a variety of journal-based metrics."


Cello scrotum hoax article

In 1974, Dr. Elaine Murphy submitted a brief case report under her husband's name
John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...
which suggested a condition known as "
cello scrotum Cello scrotum is a hoax medical condition originally published as a brief case report in the '' British Medical Journal'' in 1974. As its name suggests, it was purportedly an affliction of the scrotum affecting male players of the cello. History ...
," a fictional condition which supposedly affected male cellists. It was originally submitted as a joke in response to 'guitar nipple', a condition similar to
jogger's nipple Fissure of the nipple, colloquially referred to as "jogger's nipple", is a condition that is the result of chafing of one or both nipples. This can occur in both men and women during physical exercise such as long-distance running where there is ...
in which some forms of guitar playing causes irritation to the nipple, which Murphy and her husband believed was also a joke. The case report was published in ''The BMJ'' and although not widely cited, it was cited on some occasions with those doing so expressing scepticism. The truth of the case was reported on back in 1991. (in reference to ) In 2009, 35 years after the original case report was published, Murphy wrote a letter to ''The BMJ'' revealing that the condition was a hoax.


Website and access policies

''The BMJ'' went fully online in 1995 and archived all its issues on the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
. In addition to the print content, the site contains supporting material for original research articles, additional news stories, and electronic letters to the editors. From 1999, all content of ''The BMJ'' was freely available online; however, in 2006 this changed to a subscription model. Original research articles continue to be available freely, but from January 2006 all other 'added value' contents, including clinical reviews and editorials, require a subscription. ''The BMJ'' allows complete free access for visitors from economically disadvantaged countries as part of the
HINARI Hinari Access to Research for Health Programme was set up by the World Health Organization and major publishers to enable developing countries to access collections of biomedical and health literature. There are up to 15,000 e-journals and up to ...
initiative. In October 2008 ''The BMJ'' announced that it would become an
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
journal for research articles. A subscription continued to be required for access to other articles.


Editions

''The BMJ'' is principally an online journal, and only the website carries the full text content of every article. However, a number of print editions are produced targeting different groups of readers with selections of content, some of it abridged, and different advertising. The print editions are: * ''General Practice'' (weekly) for general practitioners * ''Clinical Research'' (weekly) for hospital doctors * ''Academic'' (monthly) for institutions, researchers and medical academics In addition, ''The BMJ'' also publishes a number of overseas/ foreign language editions: Argentine (in Spanish), Greek, Romanian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern (in English). There is also ''
Student BMJ ''Student BMJ'' is a monthly, international medical journal for medical students and junior doctors. It is published by the BMJ Group. ''Student BMJ'' was launched as a print journal in 1992 with the aim of publishing articles for medical student ...
'', an online resource for medical students and junior doctors which publishes an annual print edition each September.


Other services and information

''The BMJ'' offers several alerting services, free on request: * ''This Week In The BMJ'': Weekly table of contents email, latest research, video, blogs and editorial comment. * ''Editor's choice'': Kamran Abbasi introduces a selection of the latest research, medical news, comment and education each week. * ''Today on bmj.com'' Daily alert with links to a short selection of articles published in ''The BMJ'' in the previous 24 hours.


Editors

*
P. Hennis Green Erinensis was the pseudonym used by Peter Hennis Green (1803–1870), an Irish physician who edited medical journals and wrote many columns for ''The Lancet'' from the 1820s to the 1840s. Life Green was born about 1803 in County Cork, Ireland, t ...
and Robert Streeten (1840–1844) * Robert Streeten (1844–1849) * W.H. Ranking and J.H. Walsh (1849–1853) *
John Rose Cormack Sir John Rose Cormack FRSE FRCP (1 March 1815 – 13 May 1882) was a Scottish physician and medical journalist. He established several notable British journals: the ''Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science''; the ''London Medical Journ ...
(1853–1855) * Andrew Wynter (1855–1861) * William Orlando Markham (1861–1866) * Ernest Hart (1866–1869) *
Jonathan Hutchinson Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (23 July 1828 – 23 June 1913), was an English surgeon, ophthalmologist, dermatologist, venereologist, and pathologist. Life He was born in Selby, Yorkshire, of Quaker parents and educated in the local school. Then he ...
(1869–1871) * Ernest Hart (1871–1898) * Sir
Dawson Williams Sir Dawson Williams (17 July 1854 – 27 February 1928) was a British physician and the longest serving editor of the ''British Medical Journal'' (''BMJ''). He gave up his medical practice to edit the ''BMJ'' and published influential studies ...
(1898–1928) *
Norman Gerald Horner Norman Gerald Horner (1882–1954) was a physician, surgeon, and medical editor. Biography After education at Tonbridge School, N. Gerald Horner matriculated in October 1899 at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating there B.A. in 1902, ...
(1928–1946) * Hugh Clegg (1947–1965) *
Martin Ware Martin Ware (1915 – 23 September 1998) was a British physician. He was editor-in-chief of the '' British Medical Journal'' from 1966 to 1975. After serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, he passed the MRCP and joined the Medical Research Co ...
(1966–1975) *
Stephen Lock Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
(1975–1991) * Richard Smith (1991–2004) *
Kamran Abbasi Kamran Abbasi is the editor-in-chief of the ''British Medical Journal'' (''BMJ''), a physician, visiting professor at the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London, editor of the ''Journal of the Royal Society of Med ...
(Acting E-i-C) (2004– 2005 ) *
Fiona Godlee Fiona Godlee (born August 4, 1961) was editor in chief of ''The British Medical Journal'' from March 2005 until 31 December 2021; she was the first female editor appointed in the journal's history. She was also editorial director of the other jou ...
(2005–2021) *
Kamran Abbasi Kamran Abbasi is the editor-in-chief of the ''British Medical Journal'' (''BMJ''), a physician, visiting professor at the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London, editor of the ''Journal of the Royal Society of Med ...
(2022– )


References


External links

*
''BMJ''
at
JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bmj 1840 establishments in the United Kingdom BMJ Group academic journals Creative Commons Attribution-licensed journals English-language journals General medical journals British medical websites Open access journals Publications established in 1840 Weekly journals