BMJ  2007;334:710 (7 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.39169.894398.1F

Letters

Impact factors

The dark side

Martyn's tongue in cheek advice to the new editor of a prestigious—if fictional—journal is to raise the impact factor by various measures including "resist[ing] any sympathy when a paper is submitted on an unfashionable condition such as deafness."¹ As a psychiatrist working with deaf sign language users I was delighted to see, at last, a mention of deafness in a prestigious—and non-fictional—journal.

My teams' attempts at getting articles published in mainstream journals have been met with responses such as "not of general interest" and "there is a misspelling with Deaf spelt with a capital D" (this is the recognised name for culturally deaf sign language users). My personal favourite is a review of a paper on adapting an instrument into British Sign Language: "I would expect that particularly among deaf people an interview poses difficulties because of the sensory handicap, and the most logical choice would be to use or produce a (suitable) written format"—that Deaf people are "functionally illiterate" was spelt out in the introduction: do reviewers read introductions?

Learning disability psychiatrists have overcome this by developing their own journals. Deafness is quickly following suit. This pushes the evidence base on psychiatry in disability out of the mainstream journals at a time when policy is pushing the care of patients with learning disability and deafness into mainstream services.

London SW12 9HW

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Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Martyn C. Advice to a new editor. BMJ 2007;334:586. (17 March.)[CrossRef]

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Relevant Article

Advice to a new editor

Christopher Martyn
BMJ 2007 334: 586. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]