TOP MEDICAL JOURNALS

Magazine subscriptions through Amazon
JAMA is an excellent publication. Amazon states that magazines will begin arriving 6 to 8 weeks after order is placed. I order each and every one of my magazines through Amazon and have always found that to be true. Ordering magazines through Amazon is usually less expensive and always simple and efficient.

Jama : Journal Of The American Medical Association
I have yet to receive the first issue, once that is received I will review the journal. However service of Amazon for magazine subscriptions is lousy.

Truly Highly Respected
The JAMA is the official publication of American Medical Association, perhaps the largest medical association for healthcare professionals in the world. With highly critical reviews and high standard articles, the journal has made a name for itself as one of the premiere medical journals. The beauty of JAMA is that its articles encompasses all major fields of the medical professional, making it a must read among all health care professionals, no matter the specialty.

Published weekly and boasting a classic arts cover, the JAMA continues to keep those in medicine up to date and right on the front line of medical discoveries and research.

Health resource
This journal is chock full of weekly information that is vital to the healthcare industry. Highly recognized as one of the top medical journals and consistantly lives up to that recognition.

Engaging and Thoughtful
This is well written, engaging, and thoughtful book about the role of biomedical journals. The author was for many years the editor of the widely read British Medical Journal (BMJ) and head of the publishing group that puts out the BMJ and a number other journals. Smith presents a thorough discussion of major issues facing biomedical journals. This book has a personal flavor because Smith draws on his extensive personal experience as an editor and because he was personally involved a number of controversies related to biomedical journals. Smith's experience, however, is a bit atypical in 2 ways. As a general journal, the BMJ is somewhat different and more journalistically oriented than the majority of biomedical journals. The BMJ, unlike the great majority of journals, has full time professional editors where most journals are essentially run by volunteer academics.
Smith has a thoughtful discussions of a broad range of important topics such as the need to balance the demands of public interest with scientific issues defined narrowly, the variety of ethical problems facing journals, the tangled relationships between editors and publishers, and between industry and journals, and the changing nature of biomedical publishing.
I found the section on the economics of biomedical publishing to be the most interesting. Smith cites some remarkable data. The dominant biomedical publisher, Reed Elsevier, had profits of approximately 2 billion dollars with an impressively high margin. The largest fraction of these profits come from biomedical publishing. Smith points out the actually stunningly obvious reasons for these remarkable figures. The raw material of journals is submitted manuscripts for which journals have to pay nothing. Most journals are run by volunteer editors and editorial boards. From a publisher's point of view, this is a remarkably low over head business model. Smith points also to an almost complete lack of comptetion, a really impressive example of market failure. Smith has a thoughtful discussion of alternatives, which may come to fruition with some of the ongoing open publishing initiatives.

A new classic
This book is a must read for anyone who practices medicine or conducts, peer reviews or publishes research. While the subject matter is extremely serious, with profound and unavoidable lessons for doctors, researchers, editors, reviewers and publishers, it is also highly entertaining thanks to Smith's wry story telling which makes each chapter a joy to read. The book has a broader remit than its title would suggest. It is as much about the state of medical research as it is about publishing. I predict it will become a classic in medicine. Highly recommended.