About the Journal

Journal of Aziz Fatimah Medical and Dental College (JAFMDC)

The Journal of Aziz Fatimah Medical and Dental College is an open-access biannual medical journal that has received recognition from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and is indexed with DOAJ. It offers a platform for medical professionals and scholars to publish their research in all fields of medical study, including advanced, basic, and clinical research. The journal aims to provide the latest updates and advancements in the medical field and facilitate the synchronization of medical knowledge.

The journal is published twice a year, both in print and online, with no cost to authors for submissions and publications. All articles submitted undergo a rigorous double-blind peer-review process by two expert reviewers, to maintain the quality of articles, build public trust in the profession, and ensure trust among readers, authors, contributors, researchers, and reviewers. The journal follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) for editing and ethics.

The journal's accomplishments in obtaining recognition from HEC and being indexed with DOAJ, IMEMR Index Medicus, Plastic, and Scilit are noteworthy. It is also a member of Crossref, and it assigns digital object identifiers (DOI) to each article to enhance visibility. In the future, the journal intends to expand its indexing to other databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCO, and Medline, to increase its visibility and influence in the scientific community.

Aims & Scope
Open Acess Policy
Objectives
Selection of editorial board
Editorial policy

Plagiarism and similarity index
Credit for publication

ICMJE Recommendations for Authorship & Acknowledgement
Peer reviewer Policy
Conflict of interest
Confidentiality
Timeliness
Copyright policy
Ethical Approval of Research
Integrity
Correspondence
Correction and Retraction Policies
Publication Schedule and number of article
Targeted audience
Topic coverage
Types of manuscript
Manuscript Submission and publication fees
Subscription Details
Website/ Online Publication

Aims & Scope:

The JAFMDC aims to promote innovative research in academia and to provide a free-of-cost platform to researchers with eminence contributions towards the scientific community to publish their valuable research work in the form of original articles, systemic reviews/meta-analyses, short communications, and case reports. Being a medical journal we also aim is to improve the health care system focusing on all the areas of health and medical sciences. We publish articles in all the fields of medical, dental, nursing, and Allied health sciences. We also encouraged the articles on medical education.

It is an open access double-blind peer-reviewed medical journal for the provision, promoting consistency in pursuing relevant scientific themes and dissemination of high-quality medical research worldwide. We aim to index our journal with various databases for easy search of scientific literature and increasing citations.

Open Acess Policy

JAFMDC provides online free and open access to all of its research publications as Research is the outcome of an investment by society and hence its fruits should be returned to all people without any limitation or discrimination, thence serving society universally and in a transparent fashion.

Objectives:

Publish original, peer-reviewed articles in the English language with a strong emphasis on quality and originality on a broad range of medical topics.
Publish articles with high ethical standards.
Promote innovative developments in the medical sciences to improve healthcare practices.
Updates healthcare professionals, bio researchers, and students about the recent developments and discoveries in health sciences.

Provide physicians with continuing education in basic and clinical science to support informed clinical decisions.
Synchronize the knowledge of physicians to remain informed in multiple areas of the medical arena.
Improve public health internationally by raising the quality of medical care, disease prevention, and research provided by an informed readership.
Foster responsible and balanced debate on controversial issues that affect medicine and health care.
Highlight common issues and trends in medicine and health care.
Display social responsibility to improve the well-being of individuals and the integrity of science.
Accomplish the highest level of ethical medical journalism.
Achieve Timely, credible, and informative publications

Selection of editorial board:

JAFMDC will follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), COPE guidelines, and Higher Education Commission (HEC) policies in the selection of the editorial board, peer reviewer, authorship, and all the steps till publication of articles.

The editorial board is headed by medical personnel.
The chief editor has editorship experience
Highly qualified editorial members from various disciplines and capabilities have been selected by the editor-in-chief.
Editorial members have strong research background
25% of the editorial board members were selected from outside the institutes
To ensure the smooth functioning of the journal, the Editors are responsible for conducting the Editorial Board meetings regularly

Editorial policy:

The study has not been published (partly or as a whole) before or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere (except as an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis);
Authorship will be according to the guidelines by ICMJE as required by PM&DC and HEC.
A submitted article will be processed through double-blind peer review system by a subject expert.
Articles with the highest ethical standards with reverence to plagiarism will consider for publication.
JAFMDC will accept manuscripts prepared in accordance with the recommendations of ICMJE.
Publication misconduct will be dealt with according to COPE guidelines.
The journal also encourages the submission of useful reports of negative results.
Any author can publish only one article in an issue as 1^st author.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring article publication has been approved by all co-authors.
After the publication of the paper author dispute-related issues will not be entertained.
Any change in the authorship (such as the addition or deletion of author(s) or change in the sequence of the author list after submission of an article will not be entertained.
The undertaking will be obtained from the author to prevent duplicate publication.
A website for JAFMDC with complete archives will be maintained.
Submission of the article doesn’t guarantee the publication of an article.
Self -Self-institutional authorship will not exceed 1/5th of the total articles.
Articles of editorial board members will not be published.

Plagiarism and similarity index:

This journal strongly opposes the practice of duplicate publication or any type of plagiarism.

This journal seeks to advance the state of medical art by publishing the highest quality scientific research and such quality cannot be achieved if plagiarism is abided. a Plagiarism policy of the journal is as per HEC, PMDC, COPE, and ICMJE guidelines. To check the similarity index all articles must be processed through Turnitin software as per HEC guidelines. Turnitin is the best anti-plagiarism application serving to promote academic reputation through original writing.
As per ICJME Guidelines If the report has a similarity index ≤19%, then the benefit of the doubt may be given to the author but, in case, any single source has a similarity index >=5% without citation then it needs to be revised and will be sent back to the author for revision to bring similarity index down to the permissible limit.

After revision, it will again be processed through the same software to check its originality. After a satisfactory report, it will be sent to reviewers for peer review

Articles with a similarity index within more than 19% will not be published
The similarities in the document may contain matches with the author's previous work; it may be ignored if it is the same work.

ICMJE Recommendations for Authorship & Acknowledgement

i) Authorship criteria:

The ICMJE recommends that authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria:

Substantial contributions to the concept, design of the work; acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work.
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
Final approval of the version to be published.
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship.

ii) Acknowledgement Criteria:

Contributors who do not meet all the above-mentioned four criteria for authorship, but helped in the study, may be listed in the acknowledgment section.

Contributions:

Detailed contributions made by each author will be required at the time of submission of the manuscript.

Peer reviewer: (COPE guidelines/ ICMJE).

Peer reviewers play a pivotal and critical part in the review process and in ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record. Peer reviewers should be aware of the ethical obligations recommended by COPE and review articles with responsibility and unbiased. If the reviewer has a conflict of interest should report to the editor to prevent bias.

Appropriate expert reviewers from various disciplines will be selected by the editorial board for unbiased, independent, and critical assessment of articles to improve the quality of the manuscript. Reviewers with various specialties can be modified according to their responses.

Submitted manuscripts will initially undergo internal peer review. A manuscript with plagiarism and poor quality will be rejected in-house and appropriate articles will be sent for double-blind external peer reviews by two subject experts. Any publication misconduct will be dealt with according to COPE's guidelines.

Original articles authored by the editorial board are also externally peer-reviewed.

Editorials authored by the editor-in-chief will not be subjected to an external peer review.

Conflict of interest:

All participants including the author, peer reviewer, and editorial board must disclose conflict of interest if any. Reviewers and editorial boards must rescue themselves from reviewing and making final decisions about a specific manuscript if they have a conflict of interest. (ICMJE guidelines)

Confidentiality

Before research, informed consent should be taken from each participant by the researcher and information about the patients should be kept confidential and not be published. (ICMJE guideline)

All the manuscripts submitted to JAFMDC will be kept confidential as they are the author’s private, confidential property. Peer Reviewers also must maintain the confidentiality of reviewed manuscripts. This applies both during and after the publication process. Journal keeps a record of published articles for at least three years and rejected articles are deleted from the backup (ICMJE criteria).

Timeliness:

Editors will ensure the timely processing of manuscripts with the resources available to them.

Copyright policy:

Authors retain the copyright of their work and can deposit their publication in any repository. The work can be freely shared and adapted provided that appropriate credit is given to the actual source. JAFMDC is fully compliant with open access mandates, by publishing its articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Ethical Approval of Research:

Every original article submitted to JAFMDC should have ethical approval by the ethical review board of the institution.

All case reports require approval from the head of the department. A statement should be included showing informed consent before publication of a case report.

Integrity:

Editorial decisions will be based on the relevance of a manuscript to the journal and on the manuscript’s originality, quality, and contribution to evidence about important questions.

Correspondence:

The corresponding author of articles will have a responsibility to respond to substantial criticisms of their work using those same mechanisms and will be asked by editors to respond. Authors of correspondence will be asked to declare any competing or conflicting interests.

Correction and Retraction Policies:

The author found guilty of any type of misconduct including falsification /fabrication will be dealt with COPE guidelines. Information on COPE Retraction Guidelines can be found on link below: https://publicationethics.org/files/u661/Retractions_COPE_gline_final_3_Sept_09__2_.pdf

As suggested by ICMJE, corrections are needed for errors of fact. During the proof stage, before publication, JAFMDC sends the final PDF version of the article to the corresponding author to identify any errors to be corrected by the journal and publish the article after approval of the final version by the author.

Significant Errors identified after publication by authors or readers are corrected in a PDF copy of the online version.

Data availability statement:

Authors are encouraged to give the data availability statement in the manuscript whether data supporting finding of the article is publically available or available on request or not.

Digital Archiving Policy:

JAFMDC supports digital archiving to ensure the security and accessibility of the data. it maintains archives through CLOCKSS

Publication Schedule and number of articles:

Journal publishes on a regular Biannual (Two issues/ year) basis and aims to improve the standard in terms of quality and material. A minimum of 5 original articles per issue are being published as per HEC Guidelines for Recognition of Publications and Journals. We also encouraged publishing case reports, systemic reviews or short communication/ commentaries, and letters to editors.

Targeted audience (who will be able to publish the article)

Medical and Dental Post Graduate Students
Researchers of the medical field
Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences
Faculty of Clinical Sciences
Consultant Physicians
Resident Medical Officers
General Medical and dental Practitioners
Medical and Dental Undergraduate Students
Health care administrators
Allied healthcare professionals

Topic coverage:

Articles on an extensive range of basic and clinical medical sciences.
Updates / Advances in the disciplines of the dental field.
Continuing education in basic and clinical sciences.
Emerging developments in the medical arena
Prevalent diseases in our country and their prevention.
Biomedical ethics.
Current trends in Medical Education
Allied Health-related Scientific Research Work

Types of manuscript

Editorial (Invited)
Original Article
Review Article
Short Communication/ Commentary
Opinions/ Perspectives
Case report
Letter to Editor
Others (students corner)

Revenue sources

1. Manuscript Submission and publication fees.

All processing and publication expenses are borne by Aziz Fatimah Medical & Dental College. Hence JAFMDC does not charge any kind of fees for manuscripts to authors.

2. Provision of printed copies to authors: Complimentary copies are provided to all authors of articles published in JAFMDC free of cost

3. Subscription Details: All subscribers receive a free hard copy of the journal.

4. Advertisement policies:

It is to be mentioned that we do not encourage advertisement in scholarly scientific medical journal hence we do not accept any kind of advertisement

Website/ Online Publication

This journal has an active website. http://journal.afmdc.edu.pk
Open journal system (OJS): Submission, review, and all processing of the articles will be through the OJS system. OJS is a journal management and publishing system that assists with every stage of the refereed publishing process, from submissions through to online publication and indexing.
Online availability of the updated issues of the journal will be assured.
The citation record of the journal will be updated regularly on the website.
Archives of the previous years' published issues of the journal will be available on the journal's website.

Important Links: