Coming soon to your neighborhood

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 51, No. 9, November 2009, Page 400 College Library
By: Karen MacDonell, PhD, MLIS Robert Melrose Judy Neill

Would you like to learn how to conduct efficient and refined literature searches using evidence-based principles, com­pile print and electronic bibliographies, access the full text of articles, and evaluate authoritative consumer information on behalf of your pa­tients? 

Would the addition of audio and video continuing education re­sources make the session even more attractive? What if the workshop were actually coming to your neighborhood? 

The College Library, in collaboration with the UBC School of Medicine’s Continuing Professional Development, is taking its course, Finding Medical Evidence—Supporting Patient Care (Using the Internet to your advantage), on the road. This half-day interactive workshop is ac­credited for up to 3.5 Mainpro-M1 and Section 1 study credits. 

Courses have already been presented in Vic­toria, Comox, Pemberton, Cranbrook, Trail and Nelson, and future ones are scheduled for Prince George (21 November) and Burnaby (30 January). For full details and registration information, see UBC CPD’s web site: www.ubccpd.ca. If you would be interested in hosting a session at your hospital, give the library a call at 604 733-6671 or send an e-mail to medlib@mls.cpsbc.ca.

The library is committed to providing the best in electronic and print resources to College members and recognizes that instruction in their use is often the first step. Research indicates that hands-on interactive in­struction in online searching enhances confidence, search strategy formulation, and outcome satisfaction. All that and it’s close to home.

—Karen MacDonell
—Robert Melrose
—Judy Neill
College Librarians

Karen MacDonell, PhD, MLIS, Robert Melrose, Judy Neill. Coming soon to your neighborhood. BCMJ, Vol. 51, No. 9, November, 2009, Page(s) 400 - College Library.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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