The Journal of Urgent Care MedicineTM welcomes articles that provide practical clinical and practice management information for our readers - the nation's urgent care physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. JUCM articles should offer practical advice and solutions to clinical and practice management issues commonly encountered in day-to-day practice.
Our aim is to combine scientific preciseness and evidence-based content with a concise, lively style that's easy to read. Keep these guidelines in mind as you're preparing your manuscript, and remember that we have highly skilled, experienced editors who are prepared to give you as much help as you need.
Audience
Articles that appear in JUCM must be of practical use to our readers, who have come to practice in an urgent care setting from a variety of clinical backgrounds. Your article should take their perspective into account by considering several key issues, such as: What immediate management is indicated? What labs or diagnostics are required? What are the next steps; with whom should the patient follow up? Who should be admitted or referred to the emergency room? Imagine yourself in the reader's shoes and ensure your article includes the answers to questions you'd be asking.
The Editing and Review Process
When your manuscript arrives, we'll send you an acknowledgment and give your article to our Board of Editors. We'll let you know within a few weeks whether or not it has been accepted. If your submission is accepted for publication, it will be scheduled for an upcoming issue of JUCM and assigned to an editor.
After the first round of editing, the article is sent to several physician reviewers and board members for comment, as well as back to you, the author, for review. Reviewer comments will be considered by the editor and changes made, where appropriate. Finally, a courtesy copy of the final version is sent to the author and the article goes to our production department to be prepared for publication.
References
Our policy is to provide a reference in only two instances: (1) when citing the results of a single study, or (2) when making statements that readers are likely to question, find unusual, or want to follow up on. You needn't reference information that most readers would accept as true or statements that numerous studies over time have borne out. We try to limit references and suggested reading to 15 items per article.
Also keep the following guidelines in mind:
References and suggested readings should be recent; unless a publication is a seminal work, limit citations to material published in the past five years.
References should be limited to review articles, clinical trials, and other scholarly material. JUCM rarely cites nonclinical sources. (Statistics attributed to government agencies would be one exception.)
Primary, rather than secondary, sources should be cited.
Articles need not have a suggested reading list, although if your reference list contains fewer than 10 citations, you may want to include a few items that readers may find valuable.
Tables, Figures, Sidebars, and Pictures
Please send tables, graphs, sidebars (boxes) and digital or film pictures whenever possible. Our readers appreciate well-chosen graphics that add practical value to an article. Indicate whether you have compiled these accessories yourself or reproduced them from a previously published work. Please provide copies of the originals when items are borrowed, since we will need to write for permission to reuse this material.
Article Highlights
Please provide a brief bullet-point list that embodies the main teaching points of your article; whole sentences copied and pasted directly from the article are fine.
Length
Limit the manuscript to 2,600-3,200 words plus references, tables, figures, and other accessories. Articles that are longer will probably need to be cut during editing.
Submitting the Manuscript
Articles should be submitted via e-mail, as Word file attachments (with multicolumn tables created in Word) and addressed to . The first page of the manuscript should include the title of the article, the names of all the authors in the order they are to appear, and the name, address, and contact information (mailing address, phone, fax, email) for the corresponding author. (If you work on a Macintosh, please send your file as saved in text format.)
If you need to send photos, images, scans, or hard copy of tables that may be difficult to create electronically, please label your materials clearly (regarding which article they are meant to accompany), and mail to Harris Fleming, JUCM, 65 North Franklin Turnpike, Second Floor, Ramsey, NJ 07446; phone 201-529-4014. All art materials will be returned to the authors.
Time Frame
Typically, articles are scheduled to appear in JUCM within six months of acceptance. The editing and review process occurs approximately three months before publication.
Publication Copies
You will receive a copy of The Journal of Urgent Care MedicineTM when your article appears. If you'd like more than one copy of the issue containing your article, please ask; extras are often available. The Journal of Urgent Care MedicineTM retains the copyright to articles, but we freely allow authors to photocopy or otherwise reuse their material for educational purposes.
