Publication Question

[SomeFakeName]

I'm wondering how seriously PDs take papers that are published in medical school journals. I have a couple of case reports that I've written as first author and would like to get them published and I'm seriously looking into submitting them to a few journals that are published by med schools (e.g. University of Toronoto) which recruit papers from medical and graduate students.

I'm wary of submitting these case reports to major surgical journals, mostly due to the fact that EVERY SINGLE case report I've seen published in these journals have had M.D.s as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, author.

Do you guys know how receptive programs are to papers published in journals other than the mainstream medical/surgery ones?

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[tussy]

Why don't you submit them to the major journals, and if they get rejected, then try the medical school journal. Every publication counts, but a major journal will hold more weight than a med school publication.

 

[surg]

There are a number of papers with Non-physician first authors (I assume you have an attending to be the senior author? If not, I would get one.). The "major" surgical journals tend not to publish case reports unless they represent a major advance (e.g. the largest series ever seen and we treated it this way, etc.) over what was known, with a few exceptions for timely issues (e.g. Anthrax). Still, as tussy says, there is no penalty for submitted and getting rejected really.

I would shoot for getting it in any surgical journal over a med. school publication however as it would indeed carry more weight. However, anything is better than nothing, so you probably want to keep that in mind as well.

 

[SomeFakeName]

Thanks for your replies guys. I think I'll submit it to journals first and then try the med school ones if I get rejected like tussy suggested.

Just wondering, how long does it take for a journal to accept/reject a paper? The reason I ask is b/c journals state that you cannot submit the same paper to more than one journal at a time while waiting to be accepted or rejected by that journal. I'm looking at 5 different journals that may potentially accept my paper, so if I submit the paper to one of them at a time and have to wait around for like 3 months while they decide to accept it, that could mean I'd be waiting like 15 months if each one decides to reject the paper before I can go submit it to a med school journal.

 

[surg]

I'd say on average it takes about 3-12 weeks depending on what the article is about and how much they like it. The process is basically, you send in the copies, someone in the office decides which reviewers should get it, and sends the copies to them. They then return them when they are done (the more revisions they propose, the longer it takes). When all reviewers have returned it, they send you copies of the reviewer notes (usually about 3-6 weeks after you send it in), which you can then respond to (they usually give you about 4-6 weeks to respond). They then make a final decision. I suspect that if all the reviewers hate it, you can just withdraw it and resubmit somewhere else short-circuiting the process.

obviously this process varies slightly from journal to journal.

good luck!