ISSN 0120-0011
printed version

ISSN 2357-3848
online version

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15446/revfacmed

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

 

Scope and policy

The objective of the Journal of the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Colombia is to spread and disseminate knowledge in the several scientific, social and artistic fields related to the health area professional spheres, its practice and teaching through the publication of original papers in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The Journal of the Faculty of Medicine is indexed in: Scopus, SciELO, ISI WEB OF KNOWLEDGE, ULRICH, LILACS, PUBLINDEX, LATINDEX, OLD MEDLINE, IMBIOMED, FARO (University of Zaragoza), OJS (Open Journal Systems), SIIC DB , National University of Colombia Journals Website (digital version: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/revfacmed/). Our impact factor for 2014 is 0.142. The short for its title is Rev Fac Med, which should be used in bibliography, footnotes page, legends and references.

The Journal of the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Colombia receives articles and works every day of the year; however, submissions must strictly comply with the rules stated in the "Authors' Guidelines" section. The journal reserves the right to make changes in form and style on the original text.

The journal is published quarterly: an annual volume consisting of four issues (January-March, April-June, July-September and October-December) to be published, both in print and digital versions, in January, April, July and October. The ISSN of the journal are ISSN 0120-0011 and e-ISSN 2357-3848.

 

Form and preparation of manuscripts

1. Papers submitted to the Revista de la Facultad de Medicina must be adjusted to “Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals”, established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), available at the following website: http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf

The article must be submitted in a Word type document, letter-sized paper format, (21.5 x 27.5 cm), leaving a margin of at least 2.5 cm on all four edges, Verdana font, size 12, double spaced. Pages must be numbered in the upper right, beginning with the title page.

The articles sent to the journal are only received through the Open Journal System Platform of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia’s Journals Portal: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/revfacmed, or through the following direct link: http://goo.gl/rsVzGU. The Journal accepts manuscripts written both in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The direct link to send articles is:  http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/revfacmed/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

2. “Research Articles” must be divided into the following sections: Background, Objective, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. Other types of articles, such as “Clinical cases” and “Review articles” can be adjusted to more flexible formats, but must be approved by the editors.

3. Papers structure and order:

3.1. Title page: The first page of the manuscript must contain: 1) Title of the article, both in Spanish and English, which have to be concise but informative on the central content of the publication. It also must have a 40 characters maximum short title, including spaces between words. 2) The author or authors of the article, identified with their full names. After each author’s name there must be superscript numbers in order to identify their affiliation. 3) Author’s affiliation: name of the area or areas, departments, services and institutions to which this author belonged during the realization of the paper. 4) Full name, address, phone, plus the indicative or related codes, city, country and email of the main author or the author with which the Journal should establish communication. 5) Any source of financial support, if there is any, received in the following ways: a research grant (scholarship), equipment, drugs, or all of the above. Authors must state any financial aid received, specifying whether the organizations that provided financial aid had or had not any influence on the study design; the collection, analysis or interpretation of data, and on the preparation, review or approval of the manuscript.

3.2. Summary: summarize, in no more than 200 words, the purpose of the study or research, the materials and methods that were used, the main results obtained and the most important conclusions, with its respective Spanish version. Similarly, use the structured summary model and don’t use non-standard abbreviations.

Authors will propose 3-6 “keywords”, which must be found in the list of MeSH descriptors, in English, and DeCS descriptors, in Spanish, available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ and http://decs.bvs.br/ accessible, respectively.

3.3. Background: summarize the rationale of the study and clearly state its purpose. Where appropriate, make explicit the assumptions or hypothesis whose validity the author attempted to analyze. The topic must not be extensively reviewed and only the references strictly concerning the study or research must be cited.

3. 4. Materials and Methods: In this sections authors have to describe how the studied subjects were selected: whether they were patients or experimental animals, organs, tissues, cells, etc., and their respective controls. Authors must also identify the methods, instruments or devices and the procedures that were used with an appropriate accuracy so it is possible for other observers to reproduce the results. If well-established and frequently used methods (including statistical methods) were used, authors only have to mention them and cite the respective references. On the contrary, when the methods have been published but are not well known, authors must provide the respective references and give a brief description. If the methods are new or innovative or the authors have implemented some changes to established methods, these changes must be precisely, their usage justified and their limitations stated.

If the authors, in the making of the article, have performed experiments on human beings, there must be an explicit statement informing if the procedures carried out abode by consistent ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki (updated in 2013) and if they were reviewed and approved by an ad hoc committee of the institution where the study was conducted. Likewise, when requested by the editors, authors must attach the respective document of approval. Studies in experimental animals must be accompanied by the written approval issued by the respective Ethics Committee.

Identify the medicines and chemicals compounds used in the realization of the paper with their generic name, doses and routes of administration. Identify the patients with correlative numbers, but do not use their names initials nor the numbers of their hospital clinical records.

Authors always must indicate the number of patients or observations, the statistical methods used and the level of significance previously chosen to judge the results.

3.5. Results: Authors of the article have to present the results in a logical and consistent sequence. The data can be depicted in tables or figures, but not simultaneously in both of them. In the text, important findings should be highlighted without repeating the data shown in tables or figures. Results presentation must not be mixed with their discussion, which must be included in the Discussion section.

3.6. Discussion: A discussion of the results obtained in the article must be provided, but no a general review of the topic. Discuss only the new and important aspects that the paper provides, as well as the conclusions proposed by the authors based on such aspects. The data presented in “Results” must not be repeated. The concordance or discordance of the work findings and limitations must be explicitly expressed, comparing them with other relevant studies, identified with their respective references. The authors’ conclusions must be linked with the purposes of the study, which were highlighted in the “Background” section. Making conclusions that are not supported by the paper findings and / or rely on other unfinished works must be avoided. New hypotheses should be stated when the author find it appropriated, but they must be clearly labeled as such. If appropriate, recommendations may be proposed.

3.7. Conflict of interest: Indicate whether there is or there is not a conflict of interest.

3.8 Funding: Indicate whether there is or there is not funding.

3.9. Acknowledgments: Any acknowledgement must be expressed only to individuals and institutions that made substantive contributions to the paper or research realization. Authors are responsible for acknowledging individuals or institutions whom the readers might attribute some sort of support to the work results and conclusions.

3.10. References: References must be listed in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. They must be identified with Arabic numbers placed inside parentheses at the end of the sentence or paragraph in which they are referred to. Those references only cited in tables or figure legends must be numbered in the sequence corresponding to the first time they are cited within the text. Unpublished references are not allowed.

Abstracts of conference presentations can be cited as references if they are already published in journals of general circulation. Likewise, authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references cited in their works.

The citation format accepted by the Journal is the one accepted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE) in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (Vancouver standards). The Journal recommends including DOI numbers. Examples can be seen in the following link: http://www.fisterra.com/herramientas/recursos/vancouver/#ejemplos

In the case of review articles, these must have a minimum of 50 references.

3.11. Tables: Each and every table must be shown within the document, immediately after mentioning it, not at the end of the paper in the form of an appendix. Tables must be numbered in a sequence and must have a title that explains their contents without having to search in the text. On each column a short or abbreviated heading must be placed. In the case of all non-standard abbreviations, and when necessary, explanatory notes should be used, placing them in the table footer. Table presentation format: simple edge and the paper in-text font size. Six tables or figures as maximum are accepted.

3.12. Figures: Any image or graphic that is not a table (e.g. graphics, X-rays, EKGs, scans, photographs, drawings, diagrams, etc.) must be labeled as Figure. Graphics must be drawn by a professional or using a suitable computer program, for they must be submitted with an at least 300 dpi resolution. Each figure must be found in the text, immediately after being mentioned, and also sent in black and white in an attached document, whenever it is possible. Letters, numbers, arrows and symbols must be clear, defined and have enough size to remain legible when the figure size is reduced in the publication. Titles and legends must not appear in the figure, but under it.

Symbols, arrows or letters used in microscopic preparations photographs must have enough size and contrast to distinguish them from their surroundings. Each figure must be cited in the text in a consecutive order. If a figure exactly reproduces already published material, its source must be stated and the authors must have a written permission from the author and the original publisher to reproduce the figure or figures. Photographs of people must conceal part (s) of his face to protect their anonymity; on the contrary, the author must send a copy of the photographs authorization letter for publication.

3.13. Units of measurement: units of the metric system and the internationally accepted must be adopted and used.

4. Guidelines for original papers and Statement of Authorship Responsibility.

Both documents must be submitted along with the original paper, without regarding its nature: research article, case report, review article, letter to the editor, or others, by providing the requested data, the authors’ identification and they handwritten signatures. If the editorial review requires the author to write a new version of the paper, i.e. with substantive modifications, the editors may request the authors to renew the Statement of Authorship Responsibility to indicate their agreement with the version to be published.

Copyright

Authors must agree to transfer to the Revista de la Facultad de Medicina the copyright of the articles published in the Journal. The publisher has the right to use, reproduce, transmit, distribute and publish the articles in any form. Authors will not be able to permit or authorize the use of their published paper without the written consent of the Journal.

The letter of copyright cession and the letter of authorship responsibility must be submitted along with the original paper through the Journal OJS platform.

Before submitting your article, please verify it complies with the following requirements:

    1. The paper (or major parts of it) has not been published and will not be sent to other publications while the Editors of this Journal provide an official statement about the article acceptance.

    2. The text is double spaced, letter-sized paper, numbered, Verdana font size 12.

    3. It abides by the maximum words limit allowed by the Journal: 4,000, for “Research Articles” and “Reflection articles”; 2000, for “Clinical cases”; 5000, for “Review Articles”, and 1000 for “Letters to the Editor” and “Editorials”.

    4. The manuscript has a summary in Spanish, 200 words maximum, and one in English, 200 words maximum. It has 3-6 key words in both, Spanish and English, available at the DeCS and MeSH descriptors lists, respectively.

    5. The references cited in the article are strictly adjusted to the Vancouver international format required by the journal and were selected as recommended in the “Authors’ Guidelines” section. The Journal recommends including the DOI numbers.

    6. The article includes as references only material that has been published in widely circulated magazines or in books. Abstracts of papers presented at conferences or other scientific meetings can only be referenced if they are published in wide circulation journals.

    7. If the study involved humans or experimental animals, in “Materials and Methods” it must be expressed that international ethical standards were met. For the case of studies carried on human beings, the institution or ethical committee that approved the protocol must be identified.

    8. The manuscript was structured and organized according to the “Authors’ Guidelines” and verified taking into account the checklist of the submission step 1, in the OJS platform of the official website of Journal.

    9. The tables and figures were prepared considering the amount of data they contain and the font size that will result as a consequence of the necessary reduction when printing the Journal.

    10. If figures or tables taken from other publications are reproduced, written authorizations from their authors or publishing rights owners are provided.

    11. Photographs and figures (radiographs, etc.) respect the anonymity of those depicted in them.

    12. The complete address, city, country, phone number and email of the author who will maintain contact with the Journal is provided.

Peer Review Proccess

Papers that comply with the formal requirements of the Journal, stated in the "Authors' guidelines" section must be original; translations of articles already published in other journals are not accepted. After meeting the formal requirements, articles will be submitted to arbitration by academic peer reviewers. The Editor will assign two or more peer reviewers to each article; for approval, the article must have at least two approving concepts (to accept the article for publication with some modifications, to accept it without modifications); in the case of disagreement, it should be sent to an extra peer reviewer who will make a final decision: accept it or reject it. The evaluation of the articles is blind and the list of referees consulted per volume is published once a year in the final number of the volume.

 

Ethics Statement

Documented review and approval from a formally constituted review board (Institutional Review Board or Ethics committee) should be provided for all studies involving people, medical records, and human tissues. If the authors, in the making of the article, have performed experiments on human beings, there must be an explicit statement informing if the procedures carried out abode by consistent ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki (updated in 2013) and if they were reviewed and approved by an ad hoc committee of the institution where the study was conducted. Likewise, when requested by the editors, authors must attach the respective document of approval. Studies in experimental animals must be accompanied by the written approval issued by the respective Ethics Committee and these experiments must comply with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements.

Sending of manuscripts

Articles submitted to the Journal of the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Colombia will be only received through the Open Journal System platform of the Journals Website of the National University of Colombia: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/revfacmed, or through the following direct link http://goo.gl/rsVzGU. Articles in Spanish, English and Portuguese are received. The direct link to submit the articles is: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/revfacmed/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

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