Re: Attitude

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 52, No. 1, January February 2010, Page 10 Letters
By: E. Pankratz, MD,

I read with interest Dr Richardson’s article about attitude [BCMJ 2009;51:380]. By a coincidence I experienced both, the attitude he describes, and the attitude he wishes would prevail. 

A few years ago I had surgery at Langley Memorial Hospital; it happened to be Christmastime. My experience was bad right from the start. As Dr Richardson describes: staff were hurried, uninterested, curt, sometimes rude, and lacking in sympathy. 

The only exception was my surgeon and an internist who saw me later for a complication. What a difference at VGH (and the Cancer Centre) where I had surgery a few years earlier. During the admission and my whole stay, I never encountered an unfriendly person. The admission was remarkably well organized and quick, the post-op and ward staff were always helpful, friendly and caring.

Dr Richardson asks why poor attitude is present. The answer is simple: there is lack of leadership by the medical staff and administration. 
—E. Pankratz, MD
Abbotsford

E. Pankratz, MD,. Re: Attitude. BCMJ, Vol. 52, No. 1, January, February, 2010, Page(s) 10 - 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