GENERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ELABORATION OF A MANUSCRIPT

WITH THE PURPOSE OF BEING PUBLISHED IN THE REVISTA MÉDICO CIENTÍFICA

The Revista Médico Científica is a student organization that since its foundation has had the objective of promoting the field of publication in the Republic of Panama. Medical students and professionals from different areas of the biomedical field participate in it.

Our journal exists thanks to the joint work that successive editorial committees, their permanent advisers, special advisers, and benefactors have carried out for more than 40 years.

The Revista Médico Científica does not charge fees for submissions of papers, nor does it charge fees for the publication of its articles.

The papers are published as a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. They can be copied, used, disseminated, transmitted, and publicly displayed, as long as the authorship, URL / DOI and journal are cited and are not used for commercial purposes.

Our general requirements are based on the "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals" that have been published numerous times. The complete document and updated in December 2019, is available at www. icmje.org.

The types of articles published by the Revista Médico Científica are the following:

• Research articles
• Clinical cases
• Review Articles
• Letters to the Editor
• Medical Images
• Free Topics

Next, we present a table with the limit of words, figures, tables and the minimum of references for each article:

Type of article	Word limit*	Figure limit	Table limit	Minimum of references	Maximum of references
Research articles	6000	8	4	20	40
Clinical cases	5000	6	3	10	20
Review articles	6000	6	3	10	30
Letters to the editor	2500	3	2	3	6
Medical images	2500	3	0	3	6
Free topic	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited

 

* Words that appear in the abstract, figures, tables or references are not included within the word limit.

If you have any questions, you can contact us at the email address: info@revistamedicocientifica.org

Authors can also refer to the guidelines for reporting specific types of studies (for example, the STROBE guide for reporting observational studies and the CARE guide for reporting clinical cases); see www.equator-network.org.

 

1. General Requirements

The documents must be related to the biomedical field and will be accepted for publication at the discretion of the editorial committee and its body of advisers, according to their content and teaching importance of the subject. The Revista Médico Científica carries out an initial review by three (3) section editors belonging to the editorial committee. Subsequently, a review is carried out by two (2) external peers to the editorial committee and the organization. Said external peers are from the specialty related to the submitted manuscript and will indicate to the editorial committee the necessary corrections for the author / s. This process will take a variable time, depending onfor each document delivered. Papers will be published in the order in which they are accepted after correcting the document according to the recommendations of the editorial committee and the advisors / reviewers.

The Revista Médico Científica uses a double-blind review method, which means that both the identity of the reviewer and the author are hidden from the reviewers, and vice versa throughout the editorial process. This double-blind method is carried out within the possibilities allowed by the virtual platform we use, the Open Journal System (OJS).

To facilitate this process, authors must ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in accordance with the provisions of the manuals in the submission guidelines of this journal, so that their identity is not revealed.

Note: For more information on how to submit your work through OJS, read our 5-Step Guide to the Job Submission Process available at the following link:

https://www.revistamedicocientifica.org/uploads/files/guia_del_proceso.pdf

In the case of research involving human beings, they have the right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigree unless the information is essential for research purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) provide written informed consent for the publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that the manuscript for publication is shown to the identifiable patient. Authors should disclose to these patients if there is any identifiable potential in the material that may be available via the Internet as well as in the print version after publication. The patient's consent must be written in the journal and the authors, as dictated by Law 84 of May 14, 2019, which regulates and promotes research for health and establishes its stewardship and governance and dictates other provisions. Here is an example of informed consent that is accepted by the Revista Médico Científica (feel free to use it or resort to other alternatives):

https://www.revistamedicocientifica.org/uploads/files/Consentimiento-informado.pdf

Non-essential identification details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in patient photographs is an inadequate protection of anonymity. If the identifying characteristics are anonymized, the authors must offer a guarantee of the same.

All authors must ensure that planning conduct and human research reports are in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki revised in 2013 (https://www.wma.net/es/policies-post/declaracion-de- helsinki-de-la-amm-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-in-human-beings /).

When reporting animal experiments, authors should indicate whether national and institutional standards for the use of laboratory animals were adequately followed. For further guidance on the ethics of animal research you can review the International Association of Veterinary Editors' Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare (http://www.veteditors.org/consensus-author-guidelines-on-animal-ethics -and-welfare-for-editors).

Upon submission of a manuscript, authors should acknowledge that they have followed appropriate ethical practices in the research and preparation of the manuscript, including proper attribution of author contributions, disclosure of competing interests, and assurance that no part of the manuscript has been submitted or published elsewhere.

2. Authors

All must qualify as such, having participated in a sufficient degree to be publicly responsible for the content and integrity of the document. All those people who have collaborated in the making of the paper and those who do not qualify as authors, will be named separately in the acknowledgments section.

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

 

In addition to being responsible for the parts of the work that has done, an author must be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for other parts of the work. Authors should have confidence in the integrity of their co-authors' contributions. All those designated as authors must meet the four authorship criteria and all those who meet all four criteria must identify themselves as authors. Those people who do not meet all the criteria must be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section, as established in point 12 of this manuscript.

It should be noted that the acquisition of funds, information gathering or the general supervision of the group do not justify authorship. The works carried out by students will be prepared with the advice of a doctor or specialist professor in the field.

In each section the maximum number of authors will be specified. The names of the authors should not be included in the document (file / manuscript) to be sent.

When the work has been carried out by a multicenter group, the group must identify the person or persons who assume direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals must fully meet the authorship criteria set exposed above and must also complete specific forms for the declaration of authorship and conflicts of interest. When submitting a manuscript signed by a working group, the author responsible for the correspondence, must clearly indicate the preferred formula for citing the work, and must also individually identify the authors in addition to including the collective name of the group. The Acknowledgments section will usually include the names of the other members of the working group.

3. Presentation Letter

A presentation letter should accompany the manuscript and include the following:

• The presentation letter must state the name of all the authors in the order they wish to appear in the final publication.
• ORCID (Open Research and Contributor ID) of all authors. https://orcid.org/register.
• An abstract of up to 250 words of the importance of the findings.
• Certify that the submitted work has not been published anywhere else in any way and that it is not simultaneously sent to another journal.
• Declare any conflict of interest that the authors of the manuscript may have.
• The manuscript and the image files must be sent separately.
• Declaration indicating that the manuscript has not been published in any other journal.
• Mention the name of possible external peers who do not wish to be part of the review of your manuscript (if any).
• Attach the corresponding permissions and copyright for images beyond the authority of the article.

The names of the authors must be complete, as they wish to appear in the journal edition, together with their academic degree, institution where they work, name of the hospital and department or service to which the document must be attributed.

4. General Format Indications

Each page, starting with the title page, should include a page number in the upper right corner. Format the manuscript in Arial 14 font for the content and Arial 18 for the titles, double spacing, a single column (do not send in double column, the layout team takes care of the subsequent formatting of the final article), running and justified text. Titles should be bold and aligned with the left side of the document. Note that the Revista Médico Científica publishes in Latin American Spanish, but feel free to contact us to publish in English. All manuscripts submitted through OJS must be submitted in Microsoft Word .docx format.

Please note that we will not reject any manuscript if it is in an incorrect format. However, submitting the manuscript in the correct format will speed up the review and publication process. Also, keep in mind that these are limits for each type of article and we will accept articles below the limit of words and figures listed if the article meets the publication standards of the Revista Médico Científica.

5. Writing for All Types of Articles

5.1 Title Page (first page of document)

The title page should not contain the name of the authors (the names only in the Cover Letter) and will come first in the document. It should only contain what is described below, in the order indicated:

 

1. The title of the document should be concise, but informative. It should be written in closed capital letters and preferably not exceed a total of 20 words, avoiding the use of ambiguous words, acronyms, jargon, and abbreviations.
2. The title of the document in English.
3. Count of the total words of the writing. The abstract, acknowledgments, legends of figures and references must be excluded. You must include a separate count of the words in the abstract.
4. Include the number of pages of text (from the introduction to the conclusions, excluding the title page, the summary, bibliographies, figures and tables).
5. Include the number of figures and tables to be published.

5.2 Summary page in Spanish and English (second page of the document)

This page must contain the abstract in Spanish and English.

The abstract in Spanish and English should not exceed 150 words if it is not structured and 250 words if it is structured. It should include only information found in the text, it should not include abbreviations or references. Between three and ten keywords in Spanish and English, respectively, that allow a complete identification of the topic to be discussed, and that appear in world indexes: Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS; https://decs.bvsalud.org/E/homepagee.htm) for the Spanish keywords and the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH; www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh) for the English keywords, must be included. The context, purposes of the study or research, data that reflect the content of the article and the main conclusions should be detailed.

5.3 Text

Proper spelling and grammar and an organized presentation are required. If abbreviations and / or acronyms are used, they must be immediately after the complete term used for the first time in the text, in parentheses and must be of common and known use, trying to mention them as little as possible. The use of parentheses should be limited.

5.3.1 Tables

They are ordered and systematic sets of numbers or words that show values ​​in rows or columns. The tables must be placed in the corresponding place and not at the end of the text, double spaced, they must be understandable to the reader, explain themselves and complement the text, without confusing or repeating it. They are numbered consecutively with arabic numbers, placing above the table: Table 1: “the title of the table”. The source will be placed under the table. The author must make sure that they are cited in the text, for example: (See Table 1).

The title will be short, without centering. The column headings will be short and abbreviated, the explanations of the abbreviations will be made in the footnote using symbols in superscript format to indicate the abbreviations that need to be explained. For footnotes the following symbols should be used as stablished in the following sequence: *, †, ‡, •, ||, ‣, **, ††, ‡‡

Horizontal or vertical lines should not be used inside the tables. Only three lines: One below the title, one below the column heading and the last one at the end of the table, before the footnote.

5.3.2 Figures

The figures must be elaborated and photographed with professional quality, or digital reproductions of photographic quality must be sent. In addition to requiring versions of the figures suitable for printing (images, tables, databases, etc.), the Revista Médico Científica also requests the authors the corresponding electronic files in a format that allows the reproduction of high-quality images in the electronic version of the journal (for example, JPEG or GIF). Authors should check these images on the computer and verify that they meet the necessary quality requirements.

Figures should be self-explanatory as much as possible, as many will be reproduced directly as slides for scientific presentations. However, titles and detailed explanations should be included in the captions, not in the body of the figures. The title should go above the image and the source or description below the table, both in italics.

Microphotographs should contain scale markers. The symbols, arrows or letters included in the microphotographsshould stand out clearly against the background.

The images must have the highest possible definition, so they will be sent in JPG format and must be taken by at least a 2 megapixel camera (1600x1200 pixels). Photos of microscope plates should indicate the magnification used in it.

If photographs of people are used, they must not be identifiable, or they must be accompanied by the corresponding written authorization that allows their use. Whenever possible, specific permission should be obtained for the publication of these materials.

Figures must be numbered consecutively following the order in which they are cited for the first time in the text. When citing a figure in the text, the author must point it out as follows: (See Figure 1).

If a previously published figure is used, the original source must be identified and written permission from the copyright owner to reproduce the material must be sent with the manuscript. Unless it is a document in the public domain, this authorization is required regardless of who the authors or the publishing company are.

When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the figure, the meaning of all of them should be clearly identified and explained in the legend. The internal scale of the image should also be explained. The microphotographs should describe the staining method used.

5.3.2.1 Protection of the right to privacy of patients

Identifying information will not be published in texts, photographs, and medical records, unless the information is essential from a scientific point of view and the patient (family member or guardian) has given their written consent for the publication. The copy of the consent attached to the work is required, otherwise it will be rejected by the editorial committee.

The right to privacy of patients must not be infringed without their informed consent. Consent requires the patient to have access to the original document that is intended to be published and to be informed if it will appear on the web.

Identifying data will be omitted if not essential. Under no circumstances should patient data be altered or falsified to achieve anonymity.

5.3.3 Units of measurement

Metric units (meters, kilograms, or liters) or their decimal multiples should be used for length, height, weight, and volume measurements.

The temperature must be expressed in degrees Celsius. Blood pressure should be measured in millimeters of mercury unless the journal expressly requests the use of other units.

Laboratory data must be presented both in local units and in International System (SI) units. Before publication, some Editors may ask authors to include alternative or non-SI units, since SI units are not widely used. SI or mass units can be used for drug concentrations, but alternative units will also be shown in parentheses whenever appropriate.

5.3.4 Abbreviations and symbols

Only common abbreviations should be used; using unusual abbreviations can be extremely confusing for readers. Authors should avoid the use of abbreviations in the title of the work. The first time an abbreviation appears in the text, it must be preceded by the full term to which it refers, except in the case of common units of measure.

5.4 Conclusions

For each document, the conclusions should be written according to the objectives, without repeating the information from the introduction or discussion.

5.5 Acknowledgments

Cite all those collaborators who are not listed as authors, those people who provided technical, financial, material, scientific advice, and support in general. They must be informed that they will be appointed and their approval must be guaranteed (See point 12, Acknowledgments).

5.6 References

Check the table at the beginning of this document for the minimum and maximum number of references required. Half of them must not have a publication date greater than ten years prior to their use by the author.

Articles that have not been fully reviewed (such as summaries or "abstracts") should not be cited, nor should information of doubtful origin or credibility be cited. References to accepted but unpublished articles should be designated "in press" and permission to cite them should be obtained. Those manuscripts that were submitted, but not published, will be cited as ̈unpublished observations ̈ and permission must be obtained to cite them.

Authors should consult the Citing Medicine book for the format of the different types of bibliographic references. It is available for free at the following link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/

Bibliographic references must be numbered consecutively, following the order in which they appear for the first time in the text. References in the text, tables and legends will be identified by superscript Arabic numbers. References cited only in tables or figures should be numbered following the order in which they are mentioned for the first time in the text. The names of the journals should be abbreviated according to the style used by the Index Medicus.