Welcome to bmj.com.
The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) is an international peer reviewed medical journal and a fully “online first” publication. Our "continuous publication" model means that all articles appear on bmj.com before being included in an issue of the print journal. The website is updated daily with the BMJ’s latest original research, education, news, and comment articles, as well as podcasts, videos, and blogs.
All the BMJ’s original research is published in full on bmj.com, with open access and no limits on word counts. The BMJ’s vision is to be the world’s most influential and widely read medical journal. Our mission is to lead the debate on health and to engage, inform, and stimulate doctors, researchers, and other health professionals in ways that will improve outcomes for patients. We aim to help doctors to make better decisions. The BMJ team is based mainly in London, although we also have editors elsewhere in Europe and in the US.
Reach and impact
1,222,712 unique browsers download 5,643,102 pages from bmj.com each month (ABCe audit, October 2012). The BMJ’s Impact Factor is 17.215 (ISI Web of Science, 2012).
We audit the performance of BMJ research articles, using a wide range of indicators to assess their impact on readers and their dissemination to the wider world.
The print BMJ has a long history and has been published without interruption since 1840, when it began as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal. The print BMJ is now published weekly in three editions that vary only in their advertising content. Together, their weekly circulation totals about 122,000 copies, of which 10,000 are distributed outside Britain. International editions reach another 55,000 readers. The BMJ is printed on 100% recycled paper and mailed in a recyclable wrapper.
In May 1995 the BMJ became the first general medical journal to launch itself into cyberspace as bmj.com going on to win Best Business Product or Service at the PPAi Interactive Publishing Awards 2000, Best Integration of Media at the AOP UK Interactive Publishing Awards 2002, and to be voted one of the web's five most useful health sites by Guardian Online readers and contributors in 2004. Continuous daily publication on bmj.com started in July 2008, with all content appearing online before print publication. We abridge many articles for the print BMJ, including all research.
In July 2008 the BMJ was named Medical Publication of the Year at the Medical Journalist Association's awards in London. BMJ News Editor Annabel Ferriman was jointly awarded Health Editor of the Year, and Susan Mayor was named Medical Journalist of the Year. In the same year the US Specialist Libraries' Association named BMJ as one of the 100 most influential journals in medicine and biology of the past 100 years.
Owner and publisher
The BMJ is published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association. The editor of the BMJ is Fiona Godlee.
The BMA grants editorial freedom to the editor of the BMJ. The views expressed in the journal are those of the authors and may not necessarily comply with BMA policy. The BMJ follows guidelines on editorial independence produced by the World Association of Medical Editors and the code on good publication practice produced by the Committee on Publication Ethics, and the EQUATOR network resource centre for good research reporting.
The BMJ's sources of revenue
The BMJ receives revenue from a range of sources, to ensure wide and affordable access while maintaining high standards of quality and full editorial independence. The sources of income include subscriptions from institutions and individuals; classified advertising for jobs and courses; display advertising for pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical products; events (exhibitions, sponsorship, and visitor fees); sale of reprints, rights, and royalties; sponsorship; and open access publication fees.
Separation is maintained between the editorial team and the advertising and sponsorship sales teams. Where sponsorship has been obtained for any BMJ content—for example, as a result of an unrestricted educational grant—this is clearly indicated.
The BMJ archive
Every BMJ article published since the journal’s first issue in October 1840 is available online from bmj.com. This was launched in 2009 and achieved by digitally scanning 824 183 pages of theprint journal. It cost about $1 (£0.68; Euros 0.76) a page and was made possible by the extraordinary generosity of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the United Kingdom’s Wellcome Trust and Joint Information Systems Committee. All BMJ research articles are openly accessible to all online and, on PubMed Central.
To see five films that explore and discuss the BMJ archive, please visit this link.
The BMJ published the first centrally randomised controlled trial: Medical Research Council. Streptomycin treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. BMJ 1948;2:769-82. The journal also carried the seminal papers on the causal effects of smoking on health including: Doll R, Hill AB. Smoking and carcinoma of the lung. BMJ 1950;221(ii):739-48; Doll R, Hill AB. The mortality of doctors in relation to their smoking habits. A preliminary report. BMJ 1954;228(i): 1451-55; and Doll R, Hill AB. Lung cancer and other causes of death in relation to smoking. A second report on the mortality of British doctors. BMJ 1956;233(ii): 1071-6.
Eugene Garfield and colleagues searched the Science Citation Index for the 101 most cited papers 1955-1985, with the top slot going to Kay A W. Effect of large doses of histamine on gastric secretion of HCL. Brit Med. J. 2:77-80, 19.53, and the most highly cited from 1945 to 1989 with the same article still the winner. The most cited BMJ article since 1994 is: UK Prospective Diabetes Study Group. Tight blood pressure control and risk of macrovascular and microvascular complications in type 2 diabetes: UKPDS 38. BMJ 1998;317:703-13.
The BMJ's print indexes are available here.
Useful links
BMJ,
BMA House,
Tavistock Square,
London WC1H 9JP,
UK
Tel: +44 (020) 7387 4410
Fax: +44 (020) 7383 6418
We welcome interaction with readers, and you can contact us or respond to our articles in several ways:
Individual contact details are listed by department (see left hand menu).
To see the contact details of the editorial department please follow this link.
For questions or comments about the site, please use the Feedback link in the footer of any page
To respond to a specific article, click on Respond to this article.
What does the BMJ publish?
The BMJ's mission is to lead the debate on health, and to engage, inform, and stimulate doctors, researchers and other health professionals in ways that will improve outcomes for patients. We aim to help doctors to make better decisions.
To achieve these aims we publish original research articles, review and educational articles, news, letters, investigative journalism, and articles commenting on the clinical, scientific, social, political, and economic factors affecting health. We are delighted to consider articles for publication from doctors and others, and from anywhere in the world.
We can publish only about 7% of the 7000-8000 articles we receive each year, but we aim to give quick and authoritative decisions. For all types of article the average time from submission to first decision is two to three weeks and from acceptance to publication eight to 10 weeks. These times are usually shorter for original research articles. We reject about two thirds of all submissions without sending them for external peer review, but many authors tell us they appreciate quick decisions that allow them to submit their work elsewhere without delay.
We also audit the performance of BMJ research articles, using a wide range of indicators to assess their impact on readers and their dissemination to the wider world.
Open access
All research papers in the BMJ are published with Open Access. Moreover, the BMJ immediately fulfils the requirements of the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and other funding bodies by making the full text of publicly funded research freely available to all on bmj.com and sending it directly to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's full text archive.
The BMJ's default licence for open access publication of research is the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial licence (CC BY-NC 3.0). But where the funder requires it the author can select the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0) licence during the submission process (funders who mandate CC BY include the Wellcome Trust, RCUK, and MRC). To support Open Access publishing we ask authors of all research papers to pay an Open Access fee of £3000 (excluding VAT) on acceptance of their paper. We offer discounts and waivers for authors of unfunded research. Consideration of research articles is not related to ability to pay the fee, and we ask authors not to discuss with editors any issues concerning payment at any stage of the peer review process. Any communications related to fees are handled by administrative staff not involved in decisions about manuscripts.
The BMJ occasionally publishes other types of (non-research) article arising from work from funded by a funder who mandates Open Access publication, and the above policy applies to these too.
For articles not published with Open Access the BMJ's publication licence allows each author to post their article's URL (provided above) on either their own or their employer's website, thereby giving users free access to the full text of the article on bmj.com. Authors will need to use the toll free link to ensure visitors have free access to the article.
Alternatively, authors can post the full text of their published article on their own website or their employer's website.
Open peer review
We ask reviewers to sign their reports and declare any competing interests on any manuscripts we send them. Reviewers advise the editors, who make the final decision (aided by an editorial manuscript committee meeting for some articles, including original research).
Who else advises the editors?
The editors receive invaluable support and advice on policy and practice from the BMJ's international advisory board and the BMJ Ethics Committee.
Advice on writing, laying out, and submitting articles
For fully detailed advice please follow the links in the index at the top left of this page. The main points, however, are here:
- Where to submit an article
- How to prepare an article: for all manuscripts
- What to write: advice on preparing the different article types
- How to report research: advice on writing and submitting original research articles
- Which research does the BMJ prioritise?
- Is the BMJ the right journal for my research article?
- Policy on all aspects of transparency in conducting research, and in preparing and submitting manuscripts
- BMJ/Cleveland Clinic continuing medical education (CME)
- Responding to articles (rapid responses, letters)
- What will happen to your article: our peer review process
- Our publishing model: The BMJ publishes its articles continuously to bmj.com, so each day there is new content. We then select from among published content to make up a weekly print issue. Each online article has a unique identifier, in place of a page number; this identifier (elocator) should be used when citing any BMJ article. The form of the citation—eg BMJ 2008;337:a134—appears on all articles both online and in print, and it will appear thus in PubMed and other indexes.
- See the frequently asked questions about our publishing model
- Reprints
- Editorial policies and practices: the BMJ follows the the International Committe of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations 2013), the guidelines on editorial independence produced by the World Association of Medical Editors, the code on good publication practice produced by the Committee on Publication Ethics, and the EQUATOR network resource centre guidance on good research reporting
Editor in chief
Fiona Godlee
fgodlee@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6102
Deputy editors
Tony Delamothe
tdelamothe@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6006
Trish Groves
tgroves@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6018
Trevor Jackson
tjackson@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6677
Digital editor and readers' editor
David Payne
dpayne@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6532
Research papers editors
Trish Groves
tgroves@bmj.com
Ailbhe Burke
aburke@bmj.com
Kristina Fister
kfister@bmj.com
Elizabeth Loder
eloder@bmj.com
Christopher Martyn
cmartyn@bmj.com
Georg Roggla
groggla@bmj.com
Alison Tonks
atonks@bmj.com
Alison Walker
awalker@bmj.com
European research editor
Wim Weber
wweber@bmj.com
US clinical research editor
José Merino
jmerino@bmj.com
Primary care editor
Domhnall MacAuley
dmacauley@bmj.com
Consulting clinical epidemiology editor
Tobias Kurth
Senior researcher
Sara Schroter
sschroter@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6744
Clinical reviews editor
Sophie Cook
scook@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 7022
Specialist reviews editor
Giselle Jones
gjones@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6285
Practice editor
Mabel Chew
mchew@bmj.com
Clinical editor
Navjoyt Ladher
nladher@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6009
India editor
Anita Jain
ajain@bmj.com
Editorial registrar
Tiago Villanueva
tvillanueva@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6904
Senior news editor
Annabel Ferriman
aferriman@bmj.com
T: 44 (0)20 7383 6035
Deputy news editor
Zosia Kmietowicz
zkmietowicz@bmj.com
News reporter
Gareth Iacobucci
giacobucci@bmj.com
T: 44 (0)20 7874 0738
US news and features editor
Edward Davies
edavies@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6562
Investigations editor
Deborah Cohen
dcohen@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6183
Editorials editor
Tony Delamothe
tdelamothe@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6006
Analysis editor
Helen Macdonald
hmacdonald@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6893
Letters editor
Sharon Davies
sdavies@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6716
Observations editor
Trevor Jackson
tjackson@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6677
Magazine editor
Rebecca Coombes
rcoombes@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6243
Deputy magazine editor
Richard Hurley
rhurley@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6051
Senior editor/patient partnership
Tessa Richards
trichards@bmj.com
T: +44 (0) 20 7383 6150
Deputy editor, bmj.com, and obituaries editor
Birte Twisselmann
btwisselmann@bmj.com
obituaries@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6720
Web editor and blogs editor
Juliet Dobson
jdobson@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6542
Assistant web editor
Kelly Brendel
kbrendel@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7874 6269
Assistant editor, web production
Jett Aislabie (Mondays and Tuesdays)
jaislabie@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7874 7084
Assistant editor, web production
Tinuke Bernard (Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays)
tbernard@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7874 7084
Multimedia producer
Duncan Jarvies
djarvies@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6623
Assistant multimedia producer
Harriet Vickers
hvickers@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 7319
Editor, doc2doc
Luisa Dillner
ldillner@bmj.com
Clinical community editor, doc2doc
Sabreena Malik
smalik@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6417
Digital engagement editor
Matthew Billingsley
mbillingsley@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6277
Designer
Jane Walker
jwalker@bmj.com
Picture editor
Vanessa Fletcher
vfletcher@bmj.com
Managing editor
Lucy Banham
lbanham@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6365
Technical editors
Jackie Annis
jannis@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6658
Maggie Butler
mbutler@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6074
Sally Carter
scarter@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6659
Margaret Cooter
mcooter@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6657
Greg Cotton
gcotton@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6685
Clare Griffith
cgriffith@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6777
Elizabeth Payne
epayne@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6449
Karl Sharrock
ksharrock@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6658
Barbara Squire
bsquire@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6658
Vivien Chen
vchen@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6541
Associate editors
Jane Smith
jsmith@bmj.com
Harvey Marcovitch
hmarcovitch@bmjgroup.com
Douglas Kamerow
dkamerow@yahoo.com
Peter Doshi
pdoshi@bmj.com
PA to editor in chief
Julia Burrell
jburrell@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6102
Editorial assistant
Katie Owens
kowens@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6109
Manuscript submissions
Sue Minns
sminns@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6309
Production team
Chief production editor
John Mayor
jmayor@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6355
Assistant production editor
Malcolm Brown
T: +44 (0)20 7874 7014
Illustrator
Anthea Wilkie
T: +44 (0)1737 215143
BMJ Careers editor
Tom Moberly
tmoberly@bmj.com
T: +44 (0) 20 7383 6005
BMJ Careers news reporter
Abi Rimmer
arimmer@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7383 6005
Student editor
Katherine Bettany
studenteditor@bmj.com
T: +44 (0)20 7874 7016
Senior statistics editor
Doug Altman
Statistics editors
Tim Cole
Gary Collins
Jon Deeks
Julie Morris
Janet Peacock
Rafael Perera
Richard Riley
Angie Wade
Visiting editors
Jennifer Leaning (USA)
Ray Moynihan (USA)
Joanne Roberts (USA)
Charlie Wilson (USA)
Behrooz Astaneh (Iran)
