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Authors are the souls of any journal, and deserve much respect. To publish a journal manuscripts are needed from authors. Authors have a great responsibility for producing facts of their work in terms of number and results truthfully and an individual honesty is expected from authors in this regards. Both ways its true "No authors-No manuscripts-No journals" and "No journals–No manuscripts–No authors". Reviewing a manuscript is also a very responsible and important task of any peer-reviewed journal and to be taken seriously. It needs knowledge on the subject, sincerity, honesty and determination. Although the process of reviewing a manuscript is a time consuming task butit is expected to give one's best remarks within the time frame of the journal.
Salient features of the JCDR: It is a biomedical, multidisciplinary (including all medical and dental specialities), e-journal, with wide scope and extensive author support. At the same time, a free text of manuscript is available in HTML and PDF format. There is fast growing authorship and readership with JCDR as this can be judged by the number of articles published in it i e; in Feb 2007 of its first issue, it contained 5 articles only, and now in its recent volume published in April 2011, it contained 67 manuscripts. This e-journal is fulfilling the commitments and objectives sincerely, (as stated by Editor-in-chief in his preface to first edition) i e; to encourage physicians through the internet, especially from the developing countries who witness a spectrum of disease and acquire a wealth of knowledge to publish their experiences to benefit the medical community in patients care. I also feel that many of us have work of substance, newer ideas, adequate clinical materials but poor in medical writing and hesitation to submit the work and need help. JCDR provides authors help in this regards.
Timely publication of journal: Publication of manuscripts and bringing out the issue in time is one of the positive aspects of JCDR and is possible with strong support team in terms of peer reviewers, proof reading, language check, computer operators, etc. This is one of the great reasons for authors to submit their work with JCDR. Another best part of JCDR is "Online first Publications" facilities available for the authors. This facility not only provides the prompt publications of the manuscripts but at the same time also early availability of the manuscripts for the readers.
Indexation and online availability: Indexation transforms the journal in some sense from its local ownership to the worldwide professional community and to the public.JCDR is indexed with Embase & EMbiology, Google Scholar, Index Copernicus, Chemical Abstracts Service, Journal seek Database, Indian Science Abstracts, to name few of them. Manuscriptspublished in JCDR are available on major search engines ie; google, yahoo, msn.
In the era of fast growing newer technologies, and in computer and internet friendly environment the manuscripts preparation, submission, review, revision, etc and all can be done and checked with a click from all corer of the world, at any time. Of course there is always a scope for improvement in every field and none is perfect. To progress, one needs to identify the areas of one's weakness and to strengthen them.
It is well said that "happy beginning is half done" and it fits perfectly with JCDR. It has grown considerably and I feel it has already grown up from its infancy to adolescence, achieving the status of standard online e-journal form Indian continent since its inception in Feb 2007. This had been made possible due to the efforts and the hard work put in it. The way the JCDR is improving with every new volume, with good quality original manuscripts, makes it a quality journal for readers. I must thank and congratulate Dr Hemant Jain, Editor-in-Chief JCDR and his team for their sincere efforts, dedication, and determination for making JCDR a fast growing journal.
Every one of us: authors, reviewers, editors, and publisher are responsible for enhancing the stature of the journal. I wish for a great success for JCDR."
Thanking you
With sincere regards
Dr. Rajendra Kumar Ghritlaharey, M.S., M. Ch., FAIS
Associate Professor,
Department of Paediatric Surgery, Gandhi Medical College & Associated
Kamla Nehru & Hamidia Hospitals Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462 001 (India)
E-mail: drrajendrak1@rediffmail.com
On May 11,2011
Dr. Shankar P.R.
"On looking back through my Gmail archives after being requested by the journal to write a short editorial about my experiences of publishing with the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research (JCDR), I came across an e-mail from Dr. Hemant Jain, Editor, in March 2007, which introduced the new electronic journal. The main features of the journal which were outlined in the e-mail were extensive author support, cash rewards, the peer review process, and other salient features of the journal.
Over a span of over four years, we (I and my colleagues) have published around 25 articles in the journal. In this editorial, I plan to briefly discuss my experiences of publishing with JCDR and the strengths of the journal and to finally address the areas for improvement.
My experiences of publishing with JCDR: Overall, my experiences of publishing withJCDR have been positive. The best point about the journal is that it responds to queries from the author. This may seem to be simple and not too much to ask for, but unfortunately, many journals in the subcontinent and from many developing countries do not respond or they respond with a long delay to the queries from the authors 1. The reasons could be many, including lack of optimal secretarial and other support. Another problem with many journals is the slowness of the review process. Editorial processing and peer review can take anywhere between a year to two years with some journals. Also, some journals do not keep the contributors informed about the progress of the review process. Due to the long review process, the articles can lose their relevance and topicality. A major benefit with JCDR is the timeliness and promptness of its response. In Dr Jain's e-mail which was sent to me in 2007, before the introduction of the Pre-publishing system, he had stated that he had received my submission and that he would get back to me within seven days and he did!
Most of the manuscripts are published within 3 to 4 months of their submission if they are found to be suitable after the review process. JCDR is published bimonthly and the accepted articles were usually published in the next issue. Recently, due to the increased volume of the submissions, the review process has become slower and it ?? Section can take from 4 to 6 months for the articles to be reviewed. The journal has an extensive author support system and it has recently introduced a paid expedited review process. The journal also mentions the average time for processing the manuscript under different submission systems - regular submission and expedited review.
Strengths of the journal: The journal has an online first facility in which the accepted manuscripts may be published on the website before being included in a regular issue of the journal. This cuts down the time between their acceptance and the publication. The journal is indexed in many databases, though not in PubMed. The editorial board should now take steps to index the journal in PubMed. The journal has a system of notifying readers through e-mail when a new issue is released. Also, the articles are available in both the HTML and the PDF formats. I especially like the new and colorful page format of the journal. Also, the access statistics of the articles are available. The prepublication and the manuscript tracking system are also helpful for the authors.
Areas for improvement: In certain cases, I felt that the peer review process of the manuscripts was not up to international standards and that it should be strengthened. Also, the number of manuscripts in an issue is high and it may be difficult for readers to go through all of them. The journal can consider tightening of the peer review process and increasing the quality standards for the acceptance of the manuscripts. I faced occasional problems with the online manuscript submission (Pre-publishing) system, which have to be addressed.
Overall, the publishing process with JCDR has been smooth, quick and relatively hassle free and I can recommend other authors to consider the journal as an outlet for their work."
Dr. P. Ravi Shankar
KIST Medical College, P.O. Box 14142, Kathmandu, Nepal.
E-mail: ravi.dr.shankar@gmail.com
On April 2011 Anuradha
Dear team JCDR, I would like to thank you for the very professional and polite service provided by everyone at JCDR. While i have been in the field of writing and editing for sometime, this has been my first attempt in publishing a scientific paper.Thank you for hand-holding me through the process.
Dr. Anuradha
E-mail: anuradha2nittur@gmail.com
On Jan 2020
Original article / research
Full Version
Public Opinion On Dispensing Doctors In Malaysia
Correspondence Address :
Dr. Mohamed Azmi Ahmad Hassali,(Ph.D.)Discipline of Social and
Administrative Pharmacy
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800Minden, Penang, Malaysia. Tel:
+604-6534085, Fax: +604-6570017.
E-mail: azmihassali@usm.my
Introduction
The pharmacy profession has undergone tremendous changes especially in the last four decades. Within this context, the current pharmacy practice is becoming more patient-oriented and has opened an avenue for pharmacists to engage in a more prominent role as healthcare providers in the healthcare system (1). The modern pharmacists consider pharmaceutical care as the focus of their practice (2). Moreover, throughout the period from the ancient apothecary system to the modern era of pharmaceutical care, dispensing was considered as the core responsibility of a pharmacist (3). This enabled the pharmacists to establish direct contact with patients and thus, to provide valuable patient care services that included patient counseling, adverse drug reaction (ADR) monitoring and reporting, among others.
Malaysia is a developing country in South East Asia, which still follows a traditional ‘dispensing doctors’ system. Doctors in Malaysia still dispense medications as a part of their professional practice. There is still no separation of functions related to drug dispensing and prescribing between doctors’ clinics and pharmacies. Registered pharmacists are not the only professionals with the legal right and responsibility of dispensing medications.
The perception of the general public towards this practice in Malaysia is not known. Hence, we conducted a survey with the primary objective of studying the perception of the general public towards the dispensing doctors’ practice. This study was a cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire. The survey instrument consisted of three parts: the demographic profile of the respondents, three items to explore the perception towards dispensing separation and 19 items related to the public’s perception about dispensing doctors in Malaysia. The survey was carried out from August 4 to August 15, 2008 in the State of Penang.
Of the 1000 respondents who participated in the study, 578 (57.8%) were male. Three hundred and six (30.6%) of the respondents were aged less than 20 years, 464 (46.4%) were in the age group 20-29, 187 (18.7%) were in the age group of 30-39 years, 38 (3.8%) were in the age group of 40-49 years, and 5 (0.5%) were more than 49 years old. Of the total respondents, 37 (3.7%) had primary education, 365 (36.5%) had secondary education and the remaining 598 (59.8%) had a tertiary-level education. Furthermore, 374 (37.4%) of the respondents had visited at least one general practitioner (GP) in the past 2 months and 339 (33.9%) had visited a community pharmacist at least once in order to get some health-related advice or to purchase medicines, health devices or health supplements.
Only 268 (26.8%) of the respondents had answered ‘yes’ to the question ‘do you agree with the implementation of dispensing separation in Penang?’, while the remaining 732 (73.2%) of them answered ‘no’. Interestingly, 616 respondents (61.6%) had the willingness to get medications prescribed by their doctor, from a pharmacy. Similarly, 54.3% of the respondents thought that a pharmacist is more reliable than a doctor in explaining the uses and side effects of medicines and drugs.
The detailed responses of the public towards dispensing doctors are listed in (Table/Fig 1).
Overall, it was seen that the public liked the concept of ‘dispensing doctors’ in Malaysia. This might be because of their convenience.
Note: SA = strongly agree; A G= agree; DS = disagree; and SD=strongly disagree.
Considering the importance of the pharmacist’s role in the healthcare system, few countries in this region such as Korea (4) and Taiwan (5) have made attempts to separate dispensing from prescribing. The act of dispensing by doctors provides easy access to medicines and convenience to the patients. However, in case of minor and self-limiting ailments, it is bothersome for the patients to pay the consultation charges to the doctors, as well as pay for medications. A study reported that the dispensing doctors make a huge markup in the prices of medicines (upto 50% - 76%) for innovator brands and 316% for generics (6).
Currently, hot debates are going on in Malaysia between the government, pharmacists and doctors regarding dispensing doctors and the implementation of dispensing separation (7),(8). Unfortunately, doctors seem reluctant to loose this right of ‘dispensing’. The National Medicines Policy of Malaysia states that medical and dental practitioners are allowed to dispense medications, but to improve the quality of the use of medicines in the future, the prescribing and dispensing must be separated. It also mentions that the pharmacists have a central role in dispensing medications and counseling patients on their use (9).
In the era of ‘responsible self medication’ by pharmacists (10), this can be a blow to the patients. In conclusion, we do not know whether this is a failure of the professional pharmacy organizations or not, but it is definitely a failure for the practicing pharmacists.
The authors would like to acknowledge all the first year pharmacy students of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Universiti Sains Malaysia led by Mr Moo for helping the authors in conducting the survey.
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