Re: Congenital heart disease theme issue

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 59, No. 1, January February 2017, Page 8 Letters
By: Tracey Carpenter

Thank you for dedicating your September issue to congenital heart disease. The medical advances in this area are truly amazing, and we want to thank the doctors across BC who impact the lives of heart children and their families. I’m writing to let you know that the programs and services of the Children’s Heart Network are available to the children and families you care for to complement the care you provide.

The Children’s Heart Network is a BC-based, family-led registered charity working to help children and their families find strength and understanding from those who face similar challenges. We offer a parent resource program and provide social opportunities so that families can connect and support one another. We offer CPR training; organize summer camps, parent coffee groups, and conferences; and provide news and information through our newsletter and website.

Please don’t hesitate to sign up for our newsletter for your office or refer any heart child or family to us at childrensheartnetwork.org.
—Tracey Carpenter 
President, Children’s Heart Network

Tracey Carpenter. Re: Congenital heart disease theme issue. BCMJ, Vol. 59, No. 1, January, February, 2017, Page(s) 8 - 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.
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For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

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