Author Guidelines

Aims and scopes

The Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine is the official scientific publication of the Medical Ethics and History of Medicine of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

Physicians and health practitioners always deal with ethical issues in the treatment and management of diseases. The advent of new biomedical technologies further complicated the moral and societal issues of medical research and practice. Religious and cultural differences more emphasize the need for nationalizing this knowledge. The Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine (J Med Ethics Hist Med) is an opportunity for healthcare professionals as well as theologians, philosophers, and sociologists to present and discuss their ideas from several aspects of medical ethics and bioethics. Also, this Journal traces its roots to several aspects of the History of Medicine which further emphasizes Iranian and Islamic eras.

The J Med Ethics Hist Med is a peer-reviewed journal, which provides an opportunity for scientists and researchers in this area. The papers should be coordinated with the title of the journal framework for publication. It is essential to consider the originality of the papers and the contents have not been nor will be published elsewhere in any form or language. Author(s) are responsible for the whole concept and recommendations. All manuscripts should be submitted via http://jmehm.tums.ac.ir.

Five types of articles could be published in this Journal including:

Commentary: For discussing a special subject. No need for the abstract. General comments concerning a specific development in medical ethics should be presented as a letter whose length is about 1000-2500 words including references.

Original article: For presenting the results of a research project. Its length should be about 3000-4000 words. The structure of all qualitative articles should be based on the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research: A Synthesis of Recommendations. 

Review article: For reviewing the last ideas and hypotheses in a special subject. Its length should be about 3000-4500 words.

Case report: For presenting the rare cases. Its length should be about 1000-2500 words.

Letter to the Editor: For discussing a published article in this Journal. Its length should be about 500-1500 words.

Really good stuff: This type of article represents a short report about innovation in the field of medical ethics especially medical ethics education. The article should have no table and figure with a limited number of references, organized into three sections including what problem was addressed? What was tried? What lessons were learned? Its length should be no more than 500 words.

Publication Fee
Open access publishing is not without costs. Therefore, from the first of June 2022, the Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, is considering an article publication fee of 30,000,000 Rials for each article accepted for publication. Please use this link for the payment and email the receipt.

General information

J Med Ethics and History of Medicine is an English, open-access, and online journal. The Editors reserve the right to make editorial and literary corrections. Any expressed opinion or advocated policy does not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the editors. Papers should be prepared as a word document (font: Arial; size: 12; line spacing: double) that contain these sections :

Title, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, tables, and illustrations.

Submission

Authors are requested to submit their manuscripts online via http://jmehm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/jmehm. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor’s decision and requests for revisions, will be managed via this system. All authors should sign the copyright and publication agreement form before publication. Written permission is needed to reproduce published material (illustrations and tables) from the original publishers and authors. Accepted papers will be rapidly published online. All authors are requested to download the cover letter and the copyright form from the website of the journal, to fill the form, sign, and upload them. Ethical clearance is required for original papers.

Title
The title should contain the title of the article (only the first letter of the title should be in capital); complete names of authors with the highest academic degree(s); affiliations (the name of the department (if any), institution, city, and state or country where the work was done); and corresponding author address (the name, address, email address, fax number, and telephone number. Avoid using abbreviations in the title.

Abstract
The abstract should contain details of the topic and the most important supporting evidence and implications. Great care should be taken to provide an informative abstract that summarizes the main argument of the paper. The abstract may not exceed 200 words in length.

Keywords

Each abstract has to contain three to five keywords according to the MeSH (Medical Subjects Headings).

Text
A descriptive paper should have these subdivisions: introduction, materials/patients and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion; whereas an analytical and theoretical paper should have: introduction, results, and discussion parts to enhance the reader’s comprehension but the length of the paper should not be more than 20 pages of double spaced 12 font type including tables, illustrations, and references. The word limit is 3000-4000 words.

The material and methods section has to include the data collection method. Ethical clearance should be mentioned in this part. If the paper is based on a questionnaire or checklist, it should be mentioned. In the case of standard questionnaires, mentioning the reference and the characteristics is adequate. Each section (sampling, study design, methods, ethical considerations, analytical methods) has to contain enough details.

The results printed in the tables should not be reinserted in the main body of the paper, unless it is outstandingly important.

In the discussion section, the results have to be discussed and compared with similar studies’ results.

Acknowledgment
Authors should disclose information on financial conflicts of interest or other interests that may influence the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

Authors must acknowledge and declare any sources of funding and potential conflicting interest. Declaring a competing interest will not lead to automatic rejection of the paper, but we would like to be aware of it.

References
Only relevant references should be cited. The accuracy of references is the responsibility of the author. References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are mentioned by English numerals in parentheses in the text in the Vancouver style of reference lists(Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/index.html).

The references should be listed in numerical order on a separate sheet in double spacing. References to Journals should include the authors’ names and initials, the full title of the paper (only the first letter of the title should be in capital), year of publication, volume number, and page numbers.

1- Journal title based on PubMed Instructions. If the journal is not indexed in PubMed, its title should be written in complete name.

2- References to books should include the authors’ names and initials, the full title of the book (the first letter of all words should be in capital), publication number, publication’s name, place of publication, year of publication, and page numbers.

3- Internet references should include the authors’ name, title, web address, date of publication (if known), and the date on which the website was accessed. If the name of the author/authors has not been mentioned in the reference, please consider using “Anonymous” at the beginning.

4- This journal is indexed in PubMed so only Persian references which have English abstracts are acceptable.

All references will be searched on the internet. The ones which are not found can’t be accepted.

Authors are encouraged to consider the latest papers published in J Med Ethics and History of Medicine Ideas for the general format of presentation. Examples are as follows:

Journal:
Larijani B, Zahedi F. Ethical and religious aspects of gamete and embryo donation and legislation in Iran. J Relig Health. 2007; 46(3): 399-408.

Book:
Armitage P, Berry G, Matthews JNS. Statistical Methods in Medical Research.Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing; 2002.

Chapter of a book:
Zunin ID. Eastern origins of integrative medicine and modern applications. In: Pizzorno JE, MurratMT, eds. Textbook of Natural Medicine. St. Louis: Churchill Livingstone; 2006, pp. 3-11.

Thesis:

Surname, Name. The subject of the thesis. Town or City. University; Year.

Abstract books:

Wikler D. Population-Level Bioethics: A Research Agenda. Abstract Book of the 2^nd Congress of Medical Ethics in Iran.Tehran University of Medical Sciences; 2008

Web pages:

Anonymous. Skills to pay the bills: mastering soft skills for workplace success. [cited 2018 September]; Available from: http://www.ncwd-youth.info/publications/skills-to-pay-the-bills-mastering-soft-skills-for-workplace-success/

Figures and Tables

Authors are allowed to indicate their new hypotheses or ideas by providing diagrams, schemes, tables, or figures. Tables, diagrams, schemes, and figures are better to be in Word. Images should be in jpeg format.

Proof Reading

In order to avoid any mistakes, the corresponding author will receive a computer printout for proofreading before publication. All corrections should be marked clearly and sent immediately to the Journal office.

Ethics and informed consent

The relevant ethics committee/ institution review boards of the respective institutions must approve the study. All original articles representing human studies have to attach ethical clearance and informed consent.

Conflict of interest

Authors must acknowledge and declare any sources of funding and potential conflicting interest. Declaring a competing interest will not lead to automatic rejection of the paper, but we would like to be aware of it.

Cover letter

All authors must read, approve, and sign the Cover Letter; while the corresponding author takes on the responsibility of contacting.

The authors must inform the editor about publishing the pre-print of their paper in the cover letter if applicable.

Copyright

All authors must read, approve and sign the copyright form; while the corresponding author takes on the responsibility of contacting the Author’s declaration

Authors should state that their material is original and not previously published/submitted.

Peer review process

All manuscripts will be acknowledged upon submission to the Journal’s website, all mentioned requirements are assessed. The manuscript is sent to two or more reviewers. The whole review process depends on receiving referees’ comments and revising the manuscripts based on these comments to the author. The revised article is re-evaluated by two or more reviewers, mostly by the first reviewers. After final approval by those reviewers and the editor-in-chief, the letter of acceptance is issued to the author.

Disposal of material

Once published all copies of the manuscript and correspondence will be held for 6 months before disposal.

Revisions

We eagerly ask you to highlight the revisions made in the manuscript according to the reviewers’ comments. Also please provide a cover letter in response to every comment of the reviewer point by point. Please note that without those files your manuscript can not be processed.