This paper summarizes the main features of review articles in medical topics. Articles can be classified as narrative reviews, systematic reviews or meta-analysis. Narrative reviews are appropriate to update etiology, pathophysiology or clinical aspects of diseases, and advances in basic and preclinical sciences. In systematic reviews the authors define its purpose, limit its scope, describe the literature search, define the inclusion and exclusion criteria adopted to select primary studies, and the criteria applied to assess the quality of their results and conclusions. Meta-analysis are quantitative, statistically analysed systematic reviews that consider mainly primary studies conducted prospectively with simultaneous randomized controls, pooling the data obtained from each of these primary studies in order to get a single estimate of effect. Systematic analysis and meta-analysis are important to evaluate new diagnostic and therapeutic tools, and they are most relevant to evidence-based medicine, mainly for the design of clinical guidelines and the adoption of new health care policies. Review articles published in Revista Médica de Chile were compared in one or two-year periods separated by ten years in between: in the "2001 period" 26 reviews were all narrative; in the "2010 period" 30 reviews were narrative and another 4 were systematic reviews; in the "2019 period" 14 reviews were narrative and another 7 were systematic reviews. No meta-analysis had been published in these periods, in this journal. Meta-analysis including primary studies performed in Chile by Chilean investigators have been published in English language in other medical journals. The educational and professional role of review articles is recognised, with a word of caution on a strict adherence to ethical rules adopted by scientific and clinical publications, mainly with respect to authorship and potential conflicts of interest.
History, purposes and characteristics of medical journals Medical journals are fundamental elements in medical education, in professional life, in research and in academic careers. They communicate new scientific and clinical findings, legitimate and give credibility to biomedical and clinical investigation, are guarantors of the authors' intellectual property, are a useful forum for the discussion of relevant topics, distribute selected information to readers and are archives of their publications. Out of the numerous medical journals appeared before and during the XIX th Century, only 24 of them remain active until today and Revista Médica de Chile appears as number 20 in the list. Nowadays thousands of medical journals are published worldwide but only a small fraction are qualified as "mainstream journals", because they strictly apply an independent editorial process with clear criteria in manuscript selection based in external peer review, format requisites according to ICMJE Recommendations, are included in major databases, publish a high proportion of research articles, and other reasons. English language predominates in mainstream journals and abstracts in English become available in some databases. Electronic publications and open access are important tools to disseminate new information but the appearance of "predatory journals" is a threatening menace to the integrity of medical publications. Authors should identify and reject them. Some reflections may help those who intend to create new medical journals.
This Editorial describes the steps followed by a manuscript when it is submitted to Revista Médica de Chile: its reception, format checking as requested in Instructions to Authors, and the editors' decision whether it is considered suitable for the purposes of this journal or not; the selection of peer reviewers, a direct contact with them to ask for their willingness to review this particular manuscript; an analysis by the editors of the reviewers' criticisms leading them to the decision of whether to accept it in the current version, or to return it to the authors with a request to prepare a new corrected version, or a definitive rejection; the editors' review of a corrected version (that may require again the opinion of the external reviewers) and the final decision to accept it or not; printing of the manuscript, two successive galley proofs reviewed by authors and editors; and the final printing of the journal with its simultaneous reproduction in the web page www.scielo.cl. Roughly 70% of the manuscripts are returned to the authors offering them the opportunity to resubmit a corrected version, 12% are definitively rejected and 20% are accepted in their first version. The mean time taken for an accepted manuscript since its first submission until it appears printed is currently 7.6 months. Having only part time editors and a time-limited secretarial staff efforts to shorten this time are difficult to implement, although electronic mail and fax are increasingly being used in this editorial process.
One of the biggest earthquakes recorded in human history has recently devastated a large part of the Chilean territory and, followed by a Tsunami, destroyed cities, seaports, fishermen's coves, bridges, and countryside houses. This cataclysm affected a large proportion of our population, leaving homeless families, no working tools nor work places, hospitals, schools, public buildings, museums. However, the loss of human lives was small compared to similar disasters. It destroyed part of the national heritage as well as damaged people's living conditions. A national movement started immediately to help and recover, and international resources, both human and technological, were also set in motion. As after previous earthquakes in Chile, young M.D.'s and medical students were organized in voluntary groups backed by institutions or by their own organizations and went from large cities as Santiago and others to provide medical and psychological care to those in most need. Young members and students of other health professions (nurses, physical therapists, etc.) were included in these groups or worked in their own ones. National and international experience indicates that the forthcoming months require special care of psychological reactions and sequelae (post traumatic stress symptoms) and health consequences after water pollution, restrictions in housing and deteriorated sanitary conditions. Nevertheless, our country will stand up once more.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.