Who are the doctors of BC?

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 56, No. 6, July August 2014, Pages 262-264 Letters

The BC Medical Association, founded in 1900, recently changed its name to Doctors of BC. About 30 years ago the name Doctors BC was suggested (BCMJ 2014;56:170), at a time when complementary and alternative medicine practitioners were not allowed to have the title of doctor. I frequently see a full-page advertisement in the Province that is placed by a doctor for patients with neuropathy. A Google search for this doctor reveals him to have BSc and DC degrees. This individual has the legal right to be called a doctor; however, the public may misinterpret this individual as someone who belongs to Doctors of BC. In addition, any PhD has the right to use the title of doctor. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia has a list of doctors of BC. However, not all of them are members of Doctors of BC. I also wonder if the Canadian Medical Association will hesitate to follow BC’s lead and change its name to Doctors of Canada or Doctors Canada.
—H.C. George Wong, MD
Vancouver

H.C. George Wong, MD, FRCPC. Who are the doctors of BC?. BCMJ, Vol. 56, No. 6, July, August, 2014, Page(s) 262-264 - 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