Publishing

Before beginning to write the final or even initial draft of your report, you may first want to choose where you intend on publishing. Most peer-reviewed journals have very specific criteria regarding length, structure, and formatting requirements that need to be carefully followed if you want your work to be published. Choosing which journal to begin with will depend on a number of factors. Primarily, what is the condition and context of your case? Journals often focus on a specific pathological condition so if your patient is suffering from coronary heart disease, you’re obviously not going to try to publish in the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. In choosing a possible home for your case report, good places to explore can be found in the medical databases. The best-known medical database is PubMed, a massive collection of peer-reviewed articles provided free by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health in the US. PubMed can be accessed at www.pubmed.gov and is relatively easy to navigate with some practice (a tutorial is available). Another avenue to take is to seek out journals that focus entirely on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The benefit here is that these journals are mandated to publish CAM-related research and will likely be more open to accepting your submission. A short list of possible candidates includes:

• International Journal of Naturopathic Medicine
• Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Integrative Cancer Therapies
• Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Complementary Therapies in Medicine
• BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice
• Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine
• Alternative Medicine Review

When writing for your peers and a general medically astute audience, the art of medical writing requires clarity and brevity. The importance of proper language and grammar usage needs to be followed closely. Finally, it is not uncommon to be rejected from one journal and then warmly welcomed by another. If, in the more common scenario, a journal’s editor offers ‘acceptance pending revision’, be sure to heed the reviewers’ comments closely and respond to each of their concerns even if you disagree with them. The process of conceptualizing, writing, and submitting a case report does take some time and can appear quite daunting to begin with. That said, publishing a case report is rewarding both professionally and personally. You will be surprised at the correspondence that may arise and you can be sure that others will also benefit from your efforts.