Dr Cavers replies

While I am disappointed that Dr Potter-Cogan did not feel his involvement with the Practice Support Program (PSP) was worthwhile, the scope of this initiative made it inevitable that there would be a full spectrum of feedback from kudos to brickbats. 

Currently, 810 individual GPs are enrolled in the PSP, and by next April, 1211 GPs will have been involved—a wide range of personalities and practice styles. The overall feedback has been very positive, the drop-out rate from modules offered has been small, and more than half of the GPs have signed up for more than one module. The program is voluntary; those who do not feel it worthwhile are not forced to attend. Those who do wish to attend are remunerated for the time they and their MOAs put in.

The program is also a work in progress; I cannot remember an en­gagement of this scope having happened before. We are constantly re­viewing the content and methods in a commitment to ongoing improvement and will shamelessly plagiarize good ideas provided in suggestions and recommendations. I thank Dr Potter-Cogan for taking the time to provide us with his input.

-Bill Cavers, MD
Co-chair, General Practice Services Committee

Bill Cavers, MD. Dr Cavers replies. BCMJ, Vol. 50, No. 1, January, February, 2008, Page(s) 13 - 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