Beyond the grave?

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 47, No. 9, November 2005, Page 474 Letters

With dismay, I read the 2005 Annual Report of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC regarding the Preliminary Review Committee.

They have seen fit to publish the name of an MD who was alleged to have had sexual misconduct with a female patient, and they further noted that this MD had died in 2004 (page 30).

I fail to see what benefit there is in publishing his name, other than to cause extreme discomfort to his surviving spouse and children.

Is it the intention of the College to pursue allegations beyond the grave?

—John Hogan, MD
Abbotsford

The College responds

The issuance of disciplinary charges by the College against a member is a matter of public record. The College is required to publish an annual report which accurately and completely reflects the activities of the College, including all disciplinary activities. The College, as a self-regulating body, must be and be seen to be accountable to the public. This requires that the College’s process be transparent, even in circumstances where those processes cannot be concluded.

—M. VanAndel, MD
Registrar, CPSBC

. Beyond the grave?. BCMJ, Vol. 47, No. 9, November, 2005, Page(s) 474 - Letters.


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

Leave a Reply