Notice for contributors to Medical Humanities

Aims and scope

Medical Humanities is dedicated to interdisciplinary exploration of how humanities disciplines can illuminate the nature, goals and practice of medicine, and to promote the integration of the humanities within medical education, research, and practice. It proposes, and seeks to establish and explore a conception of medicine as being more fully "a science of the human", in which scientific understanding of physical nature is permeated by humanistic understanding of experimental nature, manifested in the histories, narratives, reasoning and behaviour of patients as thinking, knowing, experiencing subjects.

Content

The journal offers a fully peer reviewed forum for original papers (up to 6000 words), and shorter discussion articles (2000-4000 words) consisting in reasoned argument in pursuit of its aims, and reflecting perspectives within the full range of humanities disciplines, including history, literature, philosophy, ethics, politics, anthropology, together with critical analysis of the representational and performing arts etc. Papers from social sciences, presenting relevant empirical work, germane to the journal's aims are also welcomed. Short original works of expressive prose, poetry or narrative which illuminate the nature, goals and practice of medicine are invited and conference reports, book reviews (600-1000 words), announcements and short items of relevant news and letters for publication will also be considered.

The journal is multidisciplinary and papers should be in clear jargon-free English, accessible to any intelligent reader.

Submitting manuscripts for publication

Three copies of papers submitted for publication should be sent to:

The Editors
Medical Humanities
CAHHM
School for Health
University of Durham
Rm 323, Dawson Building
Science Site, South Road
Durham DH1 3HP
UK
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 2917
Fax: +44 (0)191 334 2915
Email: medical.humanities{at}durham.ac.uk

The journal considers papers only if they are not under consideration by any other journal at the same time. Rejected manuscripts are not returned. Papers, including references, should be in double-spaced typewriting on one side of the paper only. Pages should be numbered sequentially. On the title page include the name and address, telephone and fax numbers, and email address of the author to whom correspondence and proofs should be sent, and a total word count. Once a paper has been scheduled it will be requested on disk. This should be PC format, Word 97 if possible and there should be no hidden codes.

Medical Humanities (like the Journal of Medical Ethics) uses a simplified "Vancouver style" for references. The full text of the "Vancouver Agreement" was published in the BMJ (1991;302:338-41). More detailed information is given below.

Permission to reproduce previously published material must be obtained in writing from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) and the author and acknowledged in the manuscript.

Two copies of the journal will be sent to authors free of charge after their papers are published. Offprints of individual papers may be bought from The Publisher, Journal of Medical Ethics, BMJ Publishing Dept, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR. If your paper involves research on human subjects please confirm that the study has received approval from a research ethics committee (or if not, please explain why not).

Layout

All papers submitted for publication should contain the following:

On page one of the manuscript:

• The title of the article which should be concise but informative and designed to attract the reader. The Editor reserves the right to change titles to achieve these ends.
• Names, initials or forenames and academic degrees (if any) of author or authors.
• Names of department(s) and institution(s) to which the work should be attributed, if any.
• Disclaimers, if any.
• Source(s) of support, if any

On page two:

• an interesting abstract or summary of not more than 150 words. Emphasise important and or new aspects of the article to attract the potential reader. Ensure the abstract contains a statement of the aim, key points and conclusion of the paper.

Papers reporting the author's empirical research should contain a structured abstract summarising the research under the headings: objectives; design; setting; patients or participants; interventions; main measurements; results; conclusions. Structured abstracts should not be longer than 250 words.

Key (indexing) terms -- below the abstract. Provide and identify as such, three to six key words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross-indexing your article and that may be published with the abstract. Where appropriate, use terms from the Medical Subject Headings List from Index Medicus.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledge only persons who have made substantive contributions to the study. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from everyone acknowledged by name because readers may infer the latter's endorsement of data and conclusions.

Illustrations

Line drawings should be in Indian Ink on heavy white paper or card or presented as photographic prints. One original and two photocopies of each are required. Half tones (photographs) should be submitted as black and white prints, not negatives or transparencies, no larger than 30x21 cm (A4), and cropped or trimmed to remove redundant areas. Mark "top" lightly on the back in pencil. Any labelling should be on copies and not prints; the identity of patients in photographs should be concealed or their written consent to publication obtained.

Black and white illustrations (artwork) should be supplied as (or "exported as") EPS files. Our preferred formats are Illustrator or Corel Draw. Black and white images (photographs) should be supplied as TIFF files, to a minimum of 300 dpi. This will ensure the quality of the final image. Our preferred format is Photoshop. Digital graphics supplied in formats other than those listed above may be refused due to quality considerations.

Wherever possible colour images should be supplied digitally. These should be on formatted floppy disks as TIFF files, preferably at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi or high quality JPEG files along with at least one hard copy of the figure.

References

Please note that your references must be inserted in the text manually and NOT in ‘auto-numbered’ form.

Number your references consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text, tables, and captions by full-size and not superscripted Arabic numerals, in square brackets following any punctuation, for example:

… according to Jones.[3]

The list of references at the end of the paper should be numbered in the order in which each reference appears in the text. References must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

The following scheme, a simplification of the "Vancouver style" for biomedical journals, should be followed for each reference:

in the text: reference number in square brackets, following punctuation

in the reference list: author (list all authors if six or less; if seven or more, list only the first THREE [[six]] and add 'et al'), book or journal title in italics; place of publication and publisher (where appropriate); year of publication; and, where appropriate, volume number in bold; and full page references of article or chapter referred to. If abbreviations are used, they must conform to the PubMed style.

Examples of correct forms of reference are given below:

[Standard journal article:]
Teasdale K, Kent G. The use of deception in nursing. Journal of Medical Ethics 1995;21:77-81.

[Chapter in book:]
Hope T. Ethics and psychiatry. In: Rose N, ed. Essential psychiatry [2nd ed]. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1994:45-51.

[No author given:]
Anon. [editorial]. Anonymous HIV testing. Lancet 1990;335:575-6.

[Book, Personal author(s):]
Singer P, Kuhse J. Should the baby live? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

[Editor, compiler, chairman as author:]
Phillips CE, Wolfe JN, eds. Clinical practice and economics. Tunbridge Wells: Pitman Medical, 1977.

[Book or report, Corporate author:]
General Medical Council. Tomorrow's doctors -- recommendations on undergraduate medical education. London: General Medical Council, 1993.

[Agency publication:]
The Linacre Centre for the Study of Ethics and Health Care. Paper 1: The principle of respect for human life. In: Prolongation of life. London: The Linacre Centre for the Study of Ethics and Health Care, 1978.

Try to avoid using abstracts as references. 'Unpublished observations' and 'personal communications' may not be used as references, although references to written, not verbal, communications may be inserted (in parenthesis) in the text. Manuscripts accepted but not yet published may be used as references -- designate the journal followed by 'in press' (in parenthesis). Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as 'unpublished observations' (in parenthesis).

Repeated references: Where a work is referred to on more than one occasion, the first reference takes the appropriate form given above, e.g.

13. May T. The nurse under physician authority. Journal of Medical Ethics 1993;19:223-7.

…whereas a subsequent reference to the same work appears in brackets in the text of the article, and includes the initial reference number as follows:

(May, [13] p 225)

Footnotes

Footnotes should be avoided. If – in rare cases – a footnote is agreed by the Editors to be absolutely indispensable, then it should be numbered by a superscript roman numeral and it should appear at the foot of the relevant page, not in the reference listing. E.g.:

viii Type A personality ... was originally described by Friedman M and Rosenman R (Association of specific overt behaviour with blood and cardiovascular findings. JAMA 1959;12:1286-96.)