Publications by family physicians in non-family medicine journals

Why do some family physician (FP) authors submit manuscripts to non-family medicine journals instead of to family medicine journals? This study identified all 32 FP-authored articles that were published in several widely read non-family medicine journals over a 4-year period. Twenty-nine (90.6%) of the FP authors thus identified responded to a questionnaire soliciting the article's publication history. Of the 29, only one author had initially submitted his article to a family medicine journal. The most common reason cited by the other authors for not submitting to a family medicine journal was a perception that the non-family medicine journals had wider readership and prestige than family medicine journals. Other authors indicated that institutional promotion and tenure committees give less weight to publications in family medicine journals and, therefore, these authors felt it was preferable to publish in non-family medicine journals.