What is Importance of the Journal "Medical Archives"?

Medical Archives is the oldest biomedical journal in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and all important individuals of medical clinical practice have been published in the Medical Archives, and even today, in index and citation databases: Medline, PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, open access variants, is the main advertiser of medical sciences in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Medical Archives in the future would like to become a free-of-charge journal, which will publish open access articles, because finally, the financial component should be a deciding factor whether the article will be published or not. The journal opened the door to PhD students, which should also be an incentive for further progress. The main goal of the journal is to continuously raise the quality, with the addition of establishment as a source of quality science.

INTRODUCTION

Medical Archives is oldest biomedical journal in Bosnia and Herzegovina edited continually from 1947, when was founded by academician Vladimir Cavka, President of Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was official journal of Association of physicians of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1-3).

From 1947 till 2018, Twelve Editors-in-Chiefs edited the journal “Medicinski Arhiv”, which changed the name in 2014 to “Medical Archives” and deposited with that name in Pubmed, Pubmed Central and Scopus and other 30 on-line databases. From start till today mission of Editors and members of Editorial Boards was promotion of medical sciences in Bosnia and Herzegovina (4). All doyens in medical clinical practice have been published in the Medical Archives, and today, through index and citation databases: Medline, PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, in the open access form, the Medical Archive continues to be the main promoter of medical science in Bosnia and Herzegovina (4-6). Medical Archives prefers to become a free of charge journal in the future, which will publish open access articles, since in the end financial component should be a determinant whether the article will be published or not. The journal also opened doors to PhD students, which should also be an incentive for further advancement.

MEDICAL ARCHIVES IN THE YEAR 2018

The year 2018 in the work of the journal Medical Archives was marked by the new Editors and Editorial Board members. Editor-in -Chief became academician Izet Hozo, MD, PhD, replacing academician Izet Masic, MD, PhD, who has been in that position since 1994, and who has established the importance of the Medical Archives in medicine in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Editorial Board has been extended (is currently counting 24 members). In year 2018, a total number of published articles were 100 (Figure 1). Out of total number, 67% were original articles (Figure 2). We analyzed the number of authors on authors list (7). The most common number of authors on one article was three (19%) (Figure 3). Articles originated from 19 countries (the majority was from Bosnia and Herzegovina (47%), following by Iran (16%) and Greece (9%) (Figure 4).

Figure 1.

Total number of published articles in 2018

Figure 2.

Distribution of articles according to type in 2018

Figure 3.

Number of authors on authors list in 2018

Figure 4.

Geographical representation of articles in 2018

Google Scholar h5 index for Medical Archives is 20 (retrieved on December 12th, 2018), while h5 median is 25 (retrieved on December12th, 2018). The most cited reference is “Alajbegovic A, Djelilovic-Vranic J, Nakicevic A, Todorovic L, Tiric-Campara M. Post stroke depression. Med Arch. 2014 Feb; 68(1): 47-50”. This article was cited 49 times. Acceptance rate for 2018 was 36.1 %. Scimagojr.com h index for Medical Archives is 17 (the official name of journal till 2014 was “Medicinski Arhiv”) (7)

CONCLUSION

The main aim of the journal is to continually raise the quality, with the addition of establishment as a source of quality science (4). Aim of the Editorial Board in 2019 is to keep current indexation and to continue expanding its indexation to the Web of Science family. Also the aim is to open the journal to young researchers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to become a place where they will present their scientific work to the wider community. Journal will continue to follow the ethical principles in its daily work (journal is member of ICMJE and COPE). The aim of the journal is to try to create a Bosnian Herzegovinian citation database for the popularization of the science in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.