EDITORIAL POLICY OF PJMD

THE EDITORIAL TEAM

Pakistan Journal of Medicine and Dentistry (PJMD) is headed by Managing Editor and Editorial Board Members. The Editors and Editorial Board is appointed on the basis of the journal’s need for representation from a particular area. The board is committed to maintaining high journal standards and is supported by an Editorial Office Team.

 

THE REVIEW PROCESS

The Pakistan Journal of Medicine and Dentistry (PJMD) operates under a comprehensive editorial office policy for manuscript review. Initially, manuscripts undergo internal review by in- house editors to assess their originality and quality. At this stage, manuscripts may either be rejected or returned to authors for necessary corrections if they do not meet the journals standards. Following this initial review, manuscripts deemed suitable proceed to the peer review stage. PJMD employs a Double-Blind Peer Review process, ensuring anonymity for both authors and reviewers. The corrected manuscript, incorporating initial comments, is then submitted to content expert reviewers for thorough evaluation. Based on the reviewers& comments, the manuscript is either accepted for publication or rejected. This rigorous peer review process ensures that only high-quality, rigorously assessed manuscripts are published in PJMD, maintaining the journals standards of excellence in medical and dental research.

 

LICENSE AGREEMENT

By submitting the article in Journal, the corresponding author certifies that the article is original, has not been formally published in any other peer-reviewed journal, is not under consideration by any other journal and does not infringe any existing copyright.

Authors by submitting a paper in PJMD, grant PJMD a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.

 

ETHICAL APPROVAL OF RESEARCH

For all the research articles PJMD follows Code of Ethics and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors detailed in COPE Research Publication Ethics.

 

RESEARCH ON HUMAN SUBJECTS

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation and with the rules of Helsinki Declaration.

According to this declaration, an approval from an ethics committee should have been obtained before starting the research. A statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be mentioned in the article. Data of the individual participant (case reports) must be described in detail, but private information identifying participants need not be included unless the identifiable materials are of relevance to the research (for example, photographs of participants’ faces that show a particular symptom).

The use of patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, in text and illustrative material is not permitted. Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

Before sample collection a written or verbal informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients. For case reports, case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain informed consent from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submitting to the journal.

Alternatively, if informed consent was not taken, author may provide a detailed justification of why informed consent is not necessary. To respect patients’ and any other individual’s privacy, please do not send signed forms but the journal reserves the right to ask authors to provide signed forms if necessary.

 

RESEARCH ON ANIMALS

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance on animal research ethics is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare.

DECLINING A MANUSCRIPT

PJMD may refuse a manuscript if the findings are not novel, provide sufficient new insights, do not contain enough new information or is too preliminary to warrant publication

 

DECLINING MANUSCRIPT – APPEALS

Authors whose articles have been rejected have the right to send a letter of appeal giving detailed explanations. This will be reviewed in-house and a decision will be taken accordingly.

Revised articles will not be considered at this stage.

 

POLICY OF SELECTION OF EDITORS, REVIEWERS, OTHER EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

For selection of Editors, Reviewers, other Editorial Board members, human resource policies will be followed and their job descriptions are based upon vision and mission of PJMD