Editorials

Does the world need the BMJ?

To consider whether the world would be different if your institution disappeared is a sharper exercise than to compose its mission statement. Would the world miss the BMJ? The day that the BMJ is redesigned seems a good time for us to try to answer that question.

Nobody would start a new general medical journal today, and many that exist are beginning to disappear. Information scientists argue that there are too many journals, that much of what they publish is of poor quality, and that important material may be lost in a welter of the unimportant: the "signal to noise" ratio is horribly low.¹ Meanwhile, enthusiasts for the Internet curse the slowness and exclusivity of paper journals and predict their imminent demise.² They want a world where authors go directly to readers unimpeded by editors. The BMJ's environment may not thus seem inviting, but that is nothing new–of . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

Launching BMJ Masterclasses

Cath McDermott, Kieran Walsh, and Luisa Dillner
BMJ 2005 331: 1420. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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