DOI: 10.12809/hkmj144506
© Hong Kong Academy of Medicine. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
EDITORIAL
The Third Term
Ignatius TS Yu, FHKAM (Community Medicine)
Editor-in-Chief, Hong Kong Medical Journal
Thanks to the support of Fellows of the Hong Kong
Academy of Medicine (HKAM), the current Editorial Board is
entering its third term of office.
We recently reviewed the mix of specialty
backgrounds of Editorial Board members with
reference to those of the manuscripts submitted
to HKMJ. We then invited new blood among the
fellowship of the Academy to serve on the Editorial
Board. We are delighted to welcome the following
new members: (in alphabetical order) Dr Gavin
Jehim CHAN (Dermatology), Dr Wah CHEUK (Pathology),
Dr Paul Cheung-lung CHOI (Pathology), Prof Ellis
Kam-lun HON (Paediatrics), Dr Chor-yin LAM
(Orthopaedics), Prof Keith Kwong-hung LAU
(Paediatrics), Dr Pui-yau LAU (Orthopaedics), Dr Andrea On-yan LUK (Endocrinology), and Dr Arthur Dun-ping Mak (Psychiatry). Welcome on board!
Doctors Chun-bong Chow and Po-chor Tam
left us after serving 10 years on the Board and Dr
Ronald Ma left after 4 years of active contributions.
Please join me in giving them a big THANK YOU for
their dedication and past contributions!
Prof Martin Wong, who has been coordinating
the Doctor for Society section since its inception, is
now senior editor looking after that section as well
as supporting Dr Albert Chui in managing the Case
Reports. Responsibilities of other senior editors
continue as before, with Dr TW Wong handling
submissions to Medical Practice, Commentaries and
Pictorial Medicine, Prof Michael Irwin focusing on
Review Articles, and Prof PT Cheung managing the
CME papers.
Two ‘soft’ sections have been introduced over
the past two and a half years—Doctor for Society, and
Reminiscence: Artefacts from The Hong Kong Museum
of Medical Sciences. Both have been well received by
readers and thanks are due to the medical students
who helped with interviewing the doctors and writing
the manuscripts for the former, and the Education and
Research Committee of Hong Kong Museum of Medical
Sciences Society for the latter. The Editorial Board has
decided to continue these two sections.
Our Online First papers (original articles and
reviews) have attracted much attention from readers:
a hit rate approaching five thousand and more than
two thousand full text downloads. It is reassuring
that we are moving in the right direction.
The question has periodically been asked
whether HKMJ should continue with a hard copy
format when all papers are freely accessible on the
HKMJ website. The June/July 2013 Readers Survey
revealed that 71% of respondents read the print
journal, compared with 11% who read the e-version.1 There are benefits for retaining the print version and
we shall continue printing and distributing the hard
copy for the time being.
From the beginning of this year, HKMJ has
been offering its ‘mobile website’. This re-styled
website is based on the ‘responsive web’ technology
that can automatically adjust according to the device
that is browsing the website, thus making the content
user-friendly and easily accessible. It is hoped that
provision of the full text of all HKMJ papers in print
format, as well as a free file format compatible with
many smartphones, e-readers, and tablets will reap
most benefit for the journal.
Papers published in the HKMJ are attracting
a lot of media attention and some local journalists
use HKMJ as their prime source to identify new
developments in medical practice in Hong Kong. We
hope that papers published in the HKMJ will continue
to benefit the general public when highlighted by the
media, and not just be read by the medical community.
A number of colleges of the Academy have set
requirements for trainees to publish papers in peer-reviewed
journals before sitting the exit examinations.
HKMJ should serve as a suitable vehicle to achieve this.
To assist novice authors, HKMJ has prepared
some simple templates for submissions of different
types of manuscript. Potential authors may find the
following links handy:
• Template for Original Article:
HKMJ-template-OA.docx
• Template for Review Article:
HKMJ-template-RA.docx
• Template for Medical Practice paper:
HKMJ-template-MP.docx
• Template for Case Report:
HKMJ-template-CR.docx
• Template for Pictorial Medicine paper:
HKMJ-template-PM.docx
The Editorial Board will continue to work hard
over the next 2 years to ensure that the quality of
papers published in HKMJ meet the highest standards
and that new knowledge of medical developments in
Hong Kong is disseminated efficiently. This will not
be possible without the unstinting support from you,
manuscript reviewers and authors, as well as Fellows
of the HKAM, to ensure
the continued success of your journal. Let us work
together to bring HKMJ to a new stage!
Reference
1. HKMJ Editorial Board. Report on the 2013 Readers Survey. Hong Kong Med J 2013;19:374-6.
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