The BMJ
The BMJ is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, published by BMJ Group, which in turn is wholly-owned by the British Medical Association (BMA). The BMJ has editorial freedom from the BMA.[1] It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Previously called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988, and then changed to The BMJ in 2014.[2] The journal is published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, a subsidiary of the British Medical Association (BMA). The current editor-in-chief of The BMJ is Kamran Abbasi, who was appointed in January 2022.[3]
"BMJ" redirects here. For other uses, see BMJ (disambiguation).Discipline
Medicine
English
1840–present
Weekly
Immediate, research articles only
93.6 (2023)
BMJ
Indexing and citations[edit]
The BMJ is included in the major indexes PubMed, MEDLINE, EBSCO, and the Science Citation Index. The journal has long criticized the misuse of impact factors to award grants and in the recruitment of researchers by academic institutions.[22]
The five journals that cited The BMJ most often in 2008 were (in order of descending citation frequency) The BMJ, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, The Lancet, BMC Public Health, and BMC Health Services Research.[23] In the same year the five journals most often cited in articles published in The BMJ were The BMJ, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.[23]
Impact[edit]
In the 2023 Journal Citation Reports The BMJ's impact factor was reported to be 93.6.[24] ranking it 3rd among general medical journals.[25] 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."[26]
Cello scrotum hoax article[edit]
In 1974, Elaine Murphy submitted a brief case report under her husband's name John which suggested a condition known as "cello scrotum", a fictional condition that supposedly affected male cellists. It was originally submitted as a joke in response to "guitar nipple",[27] a condition similar to jogger's nipple 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,[28] and although not widely cited, it was cited occasionally, often by sceptics,[29][30] because, for example, "when the cello is held in typical playing position, the body of the instrument is not near the scrotum."[31]
In 2009, 35 years after the original case report was published, Murphy wrote a letter to The BMJ revealing that the report had been a hoax.[32]
Website and access policies[edit]
The BMJ went fully online in 1995 and archived all its issues on the World Wide Web. In addition to the print content, the site contains supporting material for original research articles, additional news stories, and electronic letters to the editors.
In 1999, all content of The BMJ was made freely available online; however, in 2006 this changed to a subscription model. Original research articles continue to be available free, 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 initiative.
In October 2008 The BMJ announced that it would become an open access journal for research articles. A subscription continued to be required for access to other articles.[33]
