Welcome to your second half-century, BCMJ

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 50, No. 1, January February 2008, Page 5 Editorials
By: Jay Draper

This issue—Volume 50, Number 1—marks the beginning of the British Columbia Medical Journal’s 50th year. So why should we care that the Journal has reached this milestone? Is longevity an accomplishment worth celebrating?

When the existence of the BCMJ was threatened in late 1998 and early 1999 British Columbia’s physicians leapt to the journal’s defence with remarkable force and passion. Your many letters of support were a vivid and touching vote of confidence in the Journal and its tradition of publishing BC physician-authors writing for the benefit of BC physicians and patients (we’ve kept those letters and refer to them on dark days!). That incident predates me, but I do draw on that reservoir of support and the knowledge that our labors are valued. Since that time we have undertaken two large, statistically valid readership surveys that have confirmed that the BCMJ is on the right track, and that it’s something you appreciate and want to keep. 

So we do think it’s worth marking this milestone. Throughout Volume 50 we’ll treat you to samples of the articles, ads, and editorials from the BCMJ’s past selected by the BCMJ’s Editorial Board—who incidentally had a great time leafing through back issues to find these gems. Some things seem to be from another planet (the ads), while others are a remarkably contiguous continuation of conversations we’re still having today (the editorials).

Our current Editorial Board members will be writing special articles, and we’d like to hear from you too. What does the BCMJ mean to you? Whether you’re a past contributor, avid reader, or even occasional reader, please write and give us your take on the BCMJ. We’ll provide you with a pencil sketch of the Journal’s history, but are counting on you to add the color and shading.

Jay Draper. Welcome to your second half-century, BCMJ. BCMJ, Vol. 50, No. 1, January, February, 2008, Page(s) 5 - Editorials.


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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