Radiologists' perception of professional journals

We assessed radiologists' perceptions of radiologic and general medical journals.

Five thousand randomly chosen radiologists (4,200 American College of Radiology (ACR) members and 800 members in training) were surveyed by mail concerning their opinion of selected radiology and major medical journals. The mail survey was followed up by a phone survey of 45 previously unsurveyed radiologists from a smaller list of a similar ACR population.

Of the 5,000 surveys mailed out, 987 (20%) were completed and returned. There were no systematic differences in the questionnaire results between those surveyed by phone and those surveyed by mail. In general, academic radiologists, private practice radiologists, and radiologists in training did not differ in their assessment of professional journals. The respondents picked Radiology as their first choice if they were allowed to read only one journal. The respondents believed that Radiology published the best clinical research and Investigative Radiology the best basic science research. American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), Radiology, and Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography ranked highest for sureness and rapidity of manuscript acceptance and publication, while Radiology, New England Journal of Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association ranked highest in terms of exposure and prestige.