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docosama

Re:

Very well said ... There are a lot of problems with our medical journals. Those who are PubMed Indexed have unfortunately long publication waiting times ... There must be some way to assess the quality of medical journals. The HEC criteria is there but does HEC regularly monitors the quality or not?
There are some journals who are exclusively for medical students, like Student Journal of RMC (JRMC) and student section of JPMA.

ithaver

Re: Dilemmas & dichotomies in getting medical research published

Pakistan has very few indexed journals in Health and Allied Sciences, which may be labeled as having a “good” impact factor. In addition, the HEC has its criteria for ranking the journals and hence the accreditation associated with it. The contributors are mainly academicians and researchers, and the overriding reason to get published is either promotion or a raise the salary. The unique breed and cream of academicians who think their manuscript is of better quality usually opt to submit articles abroad because of obvious reasons. Some intelligent authors also manage to publish their articles by paying a handsome amount as a requirement. These are the dilemmas in our academic environment.
The paradoxes can be witnessed by the Editorial policies, practices, and biases of both the editors and reviewers. Even a non-impact factor journal that has been recently launched (usually by a medical school or University) tends to have various policies, depending on the likings and favoritism of the decision-makers. In addition, the Editors for getting themselves upgraded from the lower to the upper category as defined by HEC restrict the contributors from the same college/University. The reviewing process, on average, spreads from 8-12 months, and many unfortunate ones are at the end, told that their paper can not be published just because the sample size is not appropriate rather than flagging at the first submission. The most suffered in the process are the young students who are not only better trained but can also produce good manuscripts. However, they are consistently discouraged by isolating them to the “students’ Corner,” or the supervisor/Professor or Head of Department claims ‘his tight’ to be the first author. With the rapid advancement in science, technology, and digital approaches, the requirements for young graduates are also increasing, including the number of publications. In that context, medical/dental students are at a loss because very rarely they can get any publication without the support of an academician/researcher.
In the context of these dilemmas and paradoxes, I wish to seek the opinion, comments, and feedback on whether there is a possibility of having a health sciences journal exclusively for the students. Of course, the oldies like myself and many others will be willing to extend their helping hands. The question is of feasibility, manageability, and ultimately having credibility.