Improving planetary health in BC: Taking small but important steps. Editor replies

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 64, No. 3, April 2022, Page 108 Letters
By: BCMJ Editorial Board

Thank you for your letter. We agree with the small-steps approach and have been working to lessen our environmental impact for many years. The small steps that we have taken include:

  • Supporting doctors who wish to read online-only by canceling their paper subscription and encouraging them to subscribe to BCMJ Headlines, a notification emailed when a new issue is posted on www.bcmj.org. This action directly reduces the number of copies we print.
  • Avoiding bag use, and using recyclable paper envelopes when needed.
  • Working with an environmentally advanced printer, Mitchell Press, certified by www.canopy.org.
  • Printing with vegetable-based inks.
  • Using FSC-certified paper.
  • Printing locally.

Our recently completed member survey (January 2022) again asked about members’ attitudes toward print versus online. As in previous years, a strong majority of members asked that we continue with print, and this preference holds when stratified for age and other demographic factors. The number of readers who favor print has diminished somewhat since the previous survey in 2016; this trend seems likely to continue, and perhaps in the future the BCMJ will become an online-only publication.

The BCMJ’s mission is to provide a forum for clinical education, medical news, opinion, and resources for BC physicians, and we—along with the majority of our colleagues from around BC—believe that this mission is best accomplished with a combination of print and online formats.

To cease your subscription to the paper edition, please email your request to journal@doctorsofbc.ca. To remain informed about new BC-relevant medical content, subscribe to BCMJ Headlines, a notification emailed when a new issue is posted on our website, by going to www.bcmj.org and clicking on the “Free e-subscription” button. You will be asked to provide only your name and email address.
—ED

This letter was submitted in response to “Improving planetary health in BC: Taking small but important steps.”

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BCMJ Editorial Board. Improving planetary health in BC: Taking small but important steps. Editor replies. BCMJ, Vol. 64, No. 3, April, 2022, Page(s) 108 - 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.

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  • 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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