Author(s):
Muhammed Mubarak* and Javed I. Kazi
Affiliation(s):
Department of Histopathology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), Karachi, Pakistan
Dates:
Received: 25 August, 2014; Accepted: 26 August, 2014; Published: 28 August, 2014
*Corresponding author:
Prof. Dr. Muhammed Mubarak, Professor of Pathology and Editor, GJMCCR, Department of Histopathology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Karachi-74200, Pakistan, Tel: 009221 99215752; Fax: 009221 32726165; Email: @
Citation:
Mubarak M, Kazi JI (2014) Launching Global Journal of Medical and Clinical Case Reports. Global J Med Clin Case Reports 1(1): 024. DOI: 10.17352/2455-5282.000007
Copyright:
© 2014 Mubarak M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

During the recent past, the biomedical publishing field has witnessed a decline in the publishing of the case reports by many journals. This trend is not particularly helpful for the medical community at large. The main reason for the above trend is the low citation value of the case reports, which reduces the overall impact factor of the journals. This competition of the journals for journal ranking by the yardstick of impact factor has resulted in many major journals abandoning the due share of space to the case reports. In fact, some reputable journals have even decided not to accept case reports anymore or they have made the criteria of accepting the case reports so strict that no case report finds space there [1-3].

There are several plus points in favor of publishing and promoting the case reports. The case reports are an important source of evidence in clinical medical practice, often related to a single case or a few cases (case series). In case reports, the information about such cases is provided in great detail, which is lost in the larger studies [1]. As such, the educational value of case reports for rare or new diseases, or some new aspect of a known disease, is self evident. The importance of case reports is also self-explanatory in the reporting of new side effects of drugs or medications. Thus, the scope of case reports spans almost all fields of clinical medicine. The case reports also serve as the starting point for the new entrants in the arena of medical writing. For centuries, the case reports have provided a rich resource for academic teaching and research in medicine. The case reports are the most ancient form of medical communication, which should not be made prey to the journal's pursuit of higher impact factors and evidence-based medicine, and the journals' increasing commercialization and advertising [4-6].

To cope with the above situation, there are a number of journals dedicated to publishing the case reports, but these are few and far between. As a result, this type of academic writing is underrepresented in the published literature [1]. Given the importance of case reports in expanding the knowledge base in medicine, a journal dedicated to publishing high quality case reports from this region of the world, was long overdue. The Global Journal of Medical and Clinical Case Reports has been launched to fill this void. It will cover all the major specialties of medical and clinical practice. It is an open access, online journal, with all contents freely available to medical community through out the world, free of charge. Its editorial board includes senior faculty members of repute in different specialties of medicine from all over the world. The journal is being launched from India, which has recently become the hub of academic publishing and printing. The submitted case reports will undergo the standard peer review process. However, our aim will be to notify the authors as soon as possible. Since, peertechz.com is a non-profit organization striving to expand the knowledge base in medicine; we are forced to levy article processing charges (APCs) for the contributors. These are the only source of finance for the journal, which will cover the publishing, maintaining and archiving of the journal contents. These are the flat charges, with no additional charging of whatsoever nature.

We invite the whole medical community from all over the world to come forward and help in sustaining our journal and the case reports. We aim to get the indexation of the journal in the premier indexing agencies as soon as possible. We hope that this journal will soon achieve highest standard in biomedical publishing. Your contribution will go a long way in achieving the above goals.


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