Journals appropriate for an undergrad

[reine1jb]

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i know that it depends on your specific field usually. You obviously read up on a lot of studies correlating with something you research but for example

Basic science journals: I have a subscription to nature which I feel gives a wealth of information for many different scientific disciplines

What about clinical though? What kind of clinical journal would be interesting enough for an undergrad but not so in depth that I wouldn't be able to understand most of it because I haven't obviously gone to med school yet? NEJM? The reason I ask is, this is corny, but my grandmother gets me a journal or magazine subscription for christmas every year and I have yet to pick one out?

Thanks for the input!!

 

[seraph524]

i know that it depends on your specific field usually. You obviously read up on a lot of studies correlating with something you research but for example

Basic science journals: I have a subscription to nature which I feel gives a wealth of information for many different scientific disciplines

What about clinical though? What kind of clinical journal would be interesting enough for an undergrad but not so in depth that I wouldn't be able to understand most of it because I haven't obviously gone to med school yet? NEJM? The reason I ask is, this is corny, but my grandmother gets me a journal or magazine subscription for christmas every year and I have yet to pick one out?

Thanks for the input!!

Nature and Cell are good journals to read...but Nature is slightly easier than Cell... If you like therapeutics, I recommend the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry by the ACS. I used to have a subscription to NEJM, but the clinical research articles in there are extremely heavy on the clinical side, as you can imagine...I didn't understand anything they were saying...haha...so I didn't renew...

 

[reine1jb]

Nature and Cell are good journals to read...but Nature is slightly easier than Cell... If you like therapeutics, I recommend the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry by the ACS. I used to have a subscription to NEJM, but the clinical research articles in there are extremely heavy on the clinical side, as you can imagine...I didn't understand anything they were saying...haha...so I didn't renew...

hahaha that was my worry I mean obviously I'm going MD/PhD because I have a big interest in clinical medicine and it would be nice to be able to read clinical articles the way I read basic science articles but i just don't really know what source would be good to use...thanks for your input. I'll look into the JMC

 

[seraph524]

Also, if you are on the path to become an MD/PhD...chances are you are going to have to read TONS of primary literature...which makes reading articles for pleasure almost nonexistent... If you still like science, the basic science magazines like Discover are quite enjoyable.

Another journals I would recommend are Journal of Biological Chemistry. I would tend to stay away from Science, as there are a lot of articles dealing with the physical/inorganic sciences, which may not be of interest to a future doctor...just my two cents!

 

[pseudoknot]

There is a lot to be said for
a) reading things you don't understand (eventually you will understand more, and it's good practice)
b) reading papers in Science or Nature in fields outside your own, since it's probably pretty noteworthy if it's in those pages

 

[seraph524]

There is a lot to be said for
a) reading things you don't understand (eventually you will understand more, and it's good practice)
b) reading papers in Science or Nature in fields outside your own, since it's probably pretty noteworthy if it's in those pages

I definitely agree, but it's important to establish the fundamentals of your own domain before trying to tackle something outside of your field.

 

[tbo]

Nature and Cell are good journals to read...but Nature is slightly easier than Cell... If you like therapeutics, I recommend the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry by the ACS. I used to have a subscription to NEJM, but the clinical research articles in there are extremely heavy on the clinical side, as you can imagine...I didn't understand anything they were saying...haha...so I didn't renew...

My thoughts if MD/PhD is definitely your path is that understanding some of the clinically-oriented stuff is worth delving into. It's a bit difficult to get through but one can also argue the same thing for highly technical basic papers. With that in mind, my experience on the clinical end would be:

J Clinical Investigation > NEJM > JAMA and Lancet

ordered in basic-to-clinical weighting of journals with a clinical spin. All three are clearly worthy journals. Now, if you do know your field of interest, there are a lot of quality papers in their respective specialty journals. My boss is adamant that our specialty journal has better stuff than the global surgical or medical journals (eg. Annals of Surgery or Annals of Internal Medicine) because "we know what the hell we're talking about" but to each their own I suppose 😉.

By the way, my experience with J Med Chem is that it's got a much bigger industry following/contributor pool than academic (ie you will see more stuff with compounds marked MK-0999 or CP-999999, etc). But like seraph said, it's got a therapeutic and functional group organic chemistry spin to it.

PS. You got a cool grandmother. Nice, practical and educational gift.

 

[reine1jb]

My thoughts if MD/PhD is definitely your path is that understanding some of the clinically-oriented stuff is worth delving into. It's a bit difficult to get through but one can also argue the same thing for highly technical basic papers. With that in mind, my experience on the clinical end would be:

J Clinical Investigation > NEJM > JAMA and Lancet

ordered in basic-to-clinical weighting of journals with a clinical spin. All three are clearly worthy journals. Now, if you do know your field of interest, there are a lot of quality papers in their respective specialty journals. My boss is adamant that our specialty journal has better stuff than the global surgical or medical journals (eg. Annals of Surgery or Annals of Internal Medicine) because "we know what the hell we're talking about" but to each their own I suppose 😉.

By the way, my experience with J Med Chem is that it's got a much bigger industry following/contributor pool than academic (ie you will see more stuff with compounds marked MK-0999 or CP-999999, etc). But like seraph said, it's got a therapeutic and functional group organic chemistry spin to it.

PS. You got a cool grandmother. Nice, practical and educational gift.

hahaha yes she is a wonderful lady....Fully accepts how big of a geek I am but anyways thank you for advice I will look into both J clinical investigation and also NEJM

 

[pseudoknot]

I definitely agree, but it's important to establish the fundamentals of your own domain before trying to tackle something outside of your field.

We're talking about pleasure reading here, so I don't think there's any dichotomy there.

Something else to consider is that the more general the audience for a journal (Science and Nature for example) the more likely it is that the papers will be understandable to a non-specialist in the field. However, those journals do tend to publish papers that are briefer and less thorough than the more specialized ones, which may account for someone's comment above that the specialty journals are better.

I think NEJM is a great read for someone interested in medicine and basic science, as are Science and Nature. JAMA tends to have more clinical and political content by comparison. NEJM has the very cool "Clinical Implications of Basic Research," "Clinical Practice," and "Mechanisms of Disease" review series as well.

 

[reine1jb]

We're talking about pleasure reading here, so I don't think there's any dichotomy there.

Something else to consider is that the more general the audience for a journal (Science and Nature for example) the more likely it is that the papers will be understandable to a non-specialist in the field. However, those journals do tend to publish papers that are briefer and less thorough than the more specialized ones, which may account for someone's comment above that the specialty journals are better.

I think NEJM is a great read for someone interested in medicine and basic science, as are Science and Nature. JAMA tends to have more clinical and political content by comparison. NEJM has the very cool "Clinical Implications of Basic Research," "Clinical Practice," and "Mechanisms of Disease" review series as well.

I think I'm going to choose NEJM, as you said I like how it has clinical and basic science incorporated into it. I looked into the Journal of Clinical Investigation and you can get articles on line for free! so thank you all for your insightful comments

 

[FutureNeuroStud]

I think I'm going to choose NEJM, as you said I like how it has clinical and basic science incorporated into it. I looked into the Journal of Clinical Investigation and you can get articles on line for free! so thank you all for your insightful comments

On other option you might also consider is this: if you join your school's AMA chapter ($60ish for 4 years) you will get 4 years of JAMA along with your membership and other "perks". (Being able to rent a car before age 25 and free membership to Hertz#1ClubGold is also cool.)

As far as quality of journal articles goes, you'll generally find lower quality articles in clinical journals. If you haven't already, you'll learn this in journal club, whenever you start that. For the most part, it's the nature of the game. Clinical research is harder to control with study design due to limitations on what is feasible. But this also means that clinical articles require a little more care in reading them when doing so for practical use.

 

[pseudoknot]

I gotta say, as a (former?) scientist now in med school, I find very little I care to read in JAMA...NEJM is pretty awesome and I think I'm going to spring for the $65 myself soon.