JMT Editorial : Outreach of Journal of Medical Thesis


Vol 2 | Issue 3 | Sep - Dec 2014 | page 1-2 | Shyam AK


Author: Dr. Ashok K Shyam

MS Orthopaedics
Editor - Journal of Medical Thesis
Email: drashokshyam@yahoo.co.uk


One of the most important issues related to any journal is about its outreach and number of people the journal reaches to and is of interest to. Since Journal of Medical Thesis (JMT) started publication two years back, the circulation of the journal is grown exponentially. Also the number of different medical specialities that have shown interest in publishing in JMT has grown. Earlier we used to get many thesis from orthopaedic faculty, now we have started receiving thesis from cardiology, gynaecology and other branches. This shows that Journal is slowly but surely picking up with the academic world.

JMT is a unique experiment and one of its kind journal in the world. The idea of JMT was to pool data from all thesis and make it available in public domain for all to access [1]. Something like a clinical trial registry, this was an attempt to make a registry for Medical Thesis. This is aimed at reducing the number of duplicate thesis and also prevent plagiarism. With thesis getting recognition by being published in JMT, the students also feel responsible to execute a good thesis. Over a period of time all these factors will help improve the quality of thesis that are published. Also providing this platform we aim to motivate the thesis guide who get adequate academic credit by publishing in JMT. The idea has been appreciated by many head of departments and deans that I have spoken to and we have received quite a few suggestions to improve the format and also the review process. We currently have more than 200 reviewers with us and the number is steadily growing. This will in turn improve the review process although time to publication will also increase.

JMT has been a bit delayed due to change in format and also technical modification we needed with new indexes. In attempt to increase the outreach of the Journal, head of departments and deans of medical colleges are being send invitations to be a part of the JMT Network and also submit their thesis to us for publications. This will help them create an e-library of their thesis with us which will be permanent and in public domain. This will help in developing the academic character of the institute or the college and also will encourage some competitiveness among the colleges. These factors will again help in improving the dedication with which the students will undertake their thesis and also develop an interest in the institute to promote good and relevant research. We will request the departments and the medical colleges to participate and collaborate with JMT to make this a successful model nationally and then internationally.
In line with our aim to improve the thesis quality, the Journal of Medical thesis is also conducting workshops on how to write a thesis and what all is needed to convert it to a publication [2]. We have been regularly conducting these workshops and last one was in Sir JJ Group of Government Hospitals in Mumbai.

These courses are one full day course and we talk about a lot of practical issues that student face while they do their thesis, especially for busy clinical branches. There were around a 100 students who attended the workshop and many are still in touch with JMT Team. We will also try and run symposia in every issue of JMT where a team of post graduate teachers will write about what they want their students to know about doing a post graduate thesis and how to do it in the right manner. This may take some more time but the process has already started and probably a department wise invitation will be extended. We would like the head of departments of medical colleges to join the JMT Editorial board and form a collective pool of intellectuals who can decide on the format of the journal and also help in provide suggestions for improving Thesis in the country.

Lastly the idea of JMT has been a bit of revolutionary in terms of being the first of its kind journal and has been taken up by other faculties too. A Journal of Engineering Thesis is already in discussion and will soon be launched for students of engineering and similar discussions are ongoing in field of business management too. I feel this is a good initiative and this shows the potential of idea of JMT to increase its outreach and have a cross faculty impact. We wish the new journals and their teams a very best luck for their endeavours.

Finally I would like to extend an appeal to all post graduates in medicine and allied branches to please submit their work in JMT. The journal already has a huge outreach and soon the number of people accessing JMT will exceed manifold. The special focus would be submission of thesis protocol or synopsis in the hypothesis format. This is most useful in terms of 'patenting' the intellectual property and avoiding misuse of your idea or hypothesis [3]. With this appeal I will leave you to enjoy the new issue of JMT.

Dr Ashok Shyam
Editor – JMT

References

1. Shyam AK. Editorial: Journal of Medical Thesis: Creation of A Unique Paradigm - Principles and Vision. Journal Medical Thesis 2013 July-Sep; 1(1):1-3.

2. Shyam A K. Editorial: Journal of Medical Thesis: Research Education and Journal of Medical Thesis. Journal Medical Thesis 2014 May-Aug; 2(2):1-2.

3. Shyam AK. Editorial: Journal of Medical Thesis: Hypothesis, Intellectual Property and Journal of Medical Thesis: Concept of Defensive Publication. JournalMedical Thesis 2014 Jan-Apr ; 2(1):1-2.


How to Cite this Article:  Shyam AK. Editorial: Outreach of Journal of Medical Thesis. Journal Medical Thesis 2014 Sep - Dec; 2(3):1-2

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