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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
Letter to Editor
Full Version
Pharmacovigilance: Where do we stand?
Correspondence Address :
Dr Kartik Peethambaran, Department of Pharmacology,Krishna Institute of Medical sciences,Malkapur- Karad,Satara-Maharashtra. Pincode:415110.Mobile:09975970828. E.mail:drkartik4u@gmail.com
drkartik99@rediff.com
As per the World Health Organisation (WHO) - ‘Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and the prevention of adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems’(1). The Uppsala monitoring centre (UMC) in Sweden which is an international arm of WHO for monitoring Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR), maintains an international database of ADR reports submitted by various national centres (2). It has almost 78 countries participating and they submit ADR reports by means of a web based software called VIGIBASE. India joined hands with UMC in 1998, but till date, its contribution to the UMC database remains very meagre (3). The questions which are arising are, whether the existing pharmacovigilance framework is performing to its full potential or whether it is only on paper and being health care professionals, are we significantly contributing to our country’s pharmacovigilance?
With the ever rising Indian pharmaceutical industry touching a turnover of 89000 crores Rupees (US $18 billion) in 2009, as it caters to an exploding population of more than a billion, India now ranks 3rd in terms of the volume of drug production, thereby accounting for a total of 10% of the global volume. It also ranks 4th in terms of generics and 17th in terms of export bulk (4). With all
these big players in the generic market, India becomes a scary place when we find that there is absolutely no presence of pharmacovigilance in many of the pharmaceutical companies (5). It is a matter of great concern, that with so many health care problems and diseases coupled with the trend of self medication being on the rise, where by people pop in drugs to cure themselves from illness and to keep themselves fit (6), we still do not have a properly functioning central pharmacovigilance cell (7).
The National Pharmacovigilance Programme
The Indian government had ambitiously launched the National Pharmacovigilance Programme on 23rd November 2004 along with the Central Drugs Standard Disease Control Organisation (CDSCO) and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. As per this program, 26 peripheral centres, 5 Regional Centres and 2 Zonal Centres were established. The Peripheral centres were to record the Adverse Events (AE) and send them to the Regional Centres. They in turn, would scrutinize the data received from the Peripheral Centres and submit them to the Zonal Centres. The Zonal Centres would then analyze the data and submit the consolidated information to the National Pharmacovigilance Centre (8). The programme itself is struggling hard for its survival, after almost 5 years of its launch.
Various steps that can be taken to build the foundation of a robust pharmacovigilance in India:
1. Creating awareness about pharmacovigilance in health care professionals and the required training should be included in the undergraduate curriculum.(9)
2. Designing of proper Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for various aspects of the functioning of the pharmacovigilance cells.
3. Properly designed concise (non time consuming) ADR forms should be made available, which should not only be used by the national pharmacovigilance centres, but also by all registered hospitals (both private and government), teaching hospitals, Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in rural areas and all practising general practitioners and physicians. Efforts should be made to create awareness in healthcare professionals regarding a downloadable format of the same ADR form which could be filled and submitted or can be dropped in drop boxes in the nearby centres available.
4. Procuring a software database or developing it in collaboration with IT professionals which could be accessed by all pharmacovigilance centres. Periodic auditing of the software database should be done.
5. The presence of properly functioning pharmacovigilance cells should be made mandatory in all medical colleges throughout the country and periodic inspections of these cells should be carried out, as recently proposed by DCGI.
6. More and more involvement of expert pharmacovigilance professionals from the industry arena in the functioning of the cells.
7. Intensive training should be imparted to all those professionals who are involved in the actual processing of the ADR reports.
For the safer use of drugs, there should be the presence of an efficient pharmacovigilance cell. India has to travel a long way to at least reach a benchmark which has been laid down by developed nations in the arena of pharmacovigilance (10). An attempt has been made by the Indian government for laying the foundation of an efficient pharmacovigilance system which needs to be refined and unanimously supported by all healthcare professionals.
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