Problems faced by editors of peer reviewed medical journals

Forty-six medical and dental journals are published from Pakistan of which only 29 are currently recognized by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. Only a few are peer reviewed. Six are indexed in Medline while EMBASE Excerpta Medica and World Health Organization Index Medicus for Eastern Mediterranean Region cover others. Editors of the peer reviewed medical journals are faced with numerous problems, which relate to the authors. Some of these are: shortage of quality of manuscripts, poor quality of reviewers, problems with indexation in international indexing services particularly Medline, duplicate submission and authorship and lastly, financial problems. Patronage from the Pharma industry is the major source of revenue which itself has serious implications. Editing a medical journal is a very stressful job and the editors have to work under too many pressures. A lot of useful data is presented at medical conferences, but a vast majority of it remains unpublished for various reasons, which adversely affects the citation rate from scientists from the developing third world countries in the world of medical literature. A few lectures on medical writing and research methodology to final year medical students will expose them to the art of medical writing. Specialty organizations can be persuaded to have a session on medical writing at their conferences, which will be extremely helpful not only to the potential new authors but also others, thereby improving the quality of their manuscripts. In addition to regular seminars, workshops for authors, reviewers and training courses for editors, subscribing to local medical journals by healthcare professionals and libraries are some of the measures that will help improve the situation to a great extent.