Good Guys column becomes The Good Doctor

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 54, No. 2, March 2012, Page 96 News

We recently decided here at the BCMJ that it was time to change the name of our Good Guys column. The column honors exemplary physicians who have made significant contributions to their community or to the profession, inspiring fellow physicians to detail their accomplishments in writing—truly good guys. 

Although the word “guys” is generally perceived as gender neutral, not everyone agrees, and we felt the need to recognize that approximately 30% of BC’s practising physicians are not, in fact, guys. Therefore, we’ve changed the name of the column to The Good Doctor.

Do you know of a physician who goes above and beyond the call of duty to assist colleagues, provide top-notch patient care, or change the practice of medicine for the better? If you know any Good Doctors, tell us about them! Submissions should be less than 2000 words, and can be submitted to journal@bcma.bc.ca.

. Good Guys column becomes The Good Doctor. BCMJ, Vol. 54, No. 2, March, 2012, Page(s) 96 - News.


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."
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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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