Aims and Scope

The IJMS publishes scientific research and scholarly work involving medical students and physicians within three years of medical-school graduation from around the world.

The Journal considers manuscripts relevant to medicine, health, healthcare, medical education, or the development of future clinicians and scientists. Submissions must present a clear scholarly contribution and satisfy the methodological, ethical, reporting, and editorial requirements applicable to their article type.

This page defines the Journal’s aims and scientific scope, eligible authors and collaborators, the types of scholarly content considered, and the principal circumstances in which a submission falls outside the IJMS scope.
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Contents

Aims

The IJMS aims to:

  • provide a credible international venue for research and scholarly work involving medical students and recently graduated physicians;
  • increase the visibility of contributions from emerging medical researchers across countries, institutions, disciplines, and socioeconomic settings;
  • promote scientific rigor, methodological transparency, research integrity, and responsible reporting;
  • support collaboration among emerging researchers, clinicians, educators, experienced investigators, and research mentors;
  • strengthen participation in scientific writing, editorial work, and peer review; and
  • contribute to an inclusive and internationally representative medical literature.

The developmental purpose of the Journal does not reduce its scientific standards. Manuscripts are evaluated according to their originality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, relevance, clarity, and contribution to the literature.

Additional information about the Journal’s institutional mission, history, publishing model, and educational editorial structure is available on the About the Journal page.

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Scientific Scope

The IJMS considers manuscripts across the medical and health sciences. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • clinical medicine;
  • surgery and surgical sciences;
  • primary care and family medicine;
  • emergency and critical care medicine;
  • maternal, reproductive, newborn, child, and adolescent health;
  • mental health, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences;
  • public health and population health;
  • epidemiology and disease prevention;
  • global health and health equity;
  • occupational and environmental health;
  • medical education;
  • translational medicine;
  • healthcare delivery, quality, and patient safety;
  • health policy, health systems, and health economics;
  • digital health, medical informatics, and responsible applications of artificial intelligence;
  • basic and laboratory sciences relevant to human health;
  • diagnostic, prognostic, and screening research;
  • medical ethics and professionalism;
  • research methodology and scientific communication;
  • other fields directly relevant to medicine, health, healthcare, or medical training.

Interdisciplinary and international studies are encouraged when their questions, methods, findings, or implications are relevant to medicine, health, healthcare, or medical education.

A manuscript addressing a listed field is not automatically suitable for publication. It must also present an identifiable scholarly contribution and satisfy the standards applicable to its design and article type.

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Content Considered

The IJMS considers quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, experimental, observational, evidence-synthesis, clinical, educational, and reflective scholarly contributions.

Category General content considered
Original Research Complete original research, including clinical, epidemiological, public-health, educational, laboratory, translational, qualitative, mixed-methods, health-services, and systematic-review research with meta-analysis.
Short Communication Complete original research of narrower scope or more concise presentation than a full Original Research.
Case Report A patient case or small case series with a defined clinical, scientific, diagnostic, therapeutic, ethical, or educational contribution.
Review Narrative, scoping, methodological, educational, or systematic reviews without meta-analysis. Reviews are considered by invitation only.
Experience Critical reflection on an academic, clinical, research, educational, community, international, leadership, advocacy, editorial, or professional-development experience.
Interview A structured scholarly discussion with a clinician, scientist, educator, editor, policymaker, public-health professional, or other relevant leader.
Letter to the Editor Substantive scholarly commentary on an article published in the current or immediately preceding issue of the IJMS.

The table above identifies broad categories only. Complete requirements concerning purpose, structure, abstract, keywords, reporting guidelines, consent, and article-specific materials are maintained on the Article Types page.

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Author Eligibility

Every submission must include at least one current medical student or physician within three years of medical-school graduation who has made a genuine intellectual contribution and independently qualifies for authorship.

An individual must not be added to the author list solely to make an otherwise ineligible manuscript suitable for submission.

Review Authorship and Disclosure Requirements
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Collaborating Authors and Research Supervision

The IJMS welcomes collaboration between eligible medical students or recently graduated physicians and experienced researchers, clinicians, educators, statisticians, methodologists, laboratory scientists, and other relevant contributors.

Experienced collaborators may provide scientific, clinical, methodological, or educational guidance. Each listed author must nevertheless satisfy the Journal’s authorship criteria and accept accountability for the contribution attributed to them.

Authors from other academic and professional backgrounds may participate when their contributions are relevant. These may include:

  • researchers and scientists;
  • clinicians and other healthcare professionals;
  • statisticians and epidemiologists;
  • qualitative researchers and methodologists;
  • educators;
  • public-health and policy professionals;
  • laboratory and technical specialists; and
  • students from other disciplines.

Supervision, departmental leadership, funding acquisition, access to participants, or general oversight alone does not automatically establish authorship.

Complete rules concerning authorship, contributor roles, author order, acknowledgments, ORCID, funding, conflicts of interest, and changes to authorship are provided on the Authorship and Disclosures page.

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Content Outside the Journal’s Scope

The following submissions are generally outside the scope of the IJMS:

Submission or issue Journal position
No eligible medical-student or recent-graduate author The submission does not satisfy the Journal’s author-eligibility requirement.
Subject unrelated to the Journal The work is not meaningfully relevant to medicine, health, healthcare, medical education, or the development of clinicians and scientists.
Study protocol Protocols are not accepted as regular submissions.
Unsolicited Review Narrative reviews, scoping reviews, and systematic reviews without meta-analysis are considered by invitation only.
Unstructured literature summary A manuscript that merely summarizes sources without a defined scholarly, critical, or methodological contribution is not suitable.
Incomplete research Incomplete analyses, fragmented findings, insufficient methods, or partial reports are not suitable for consideration.
Conference abstract presented as a manuscript A conference abstract must be developed into a complete manuscript with adequate methods, results, analysis, interpretation, and reporting.
Ineligible Letter to the Editor A Letter must ordinarily address an article published in the current or immediately preceding IJMS issue.
Purely descriptive personal narrative An Experience manuscript must include critical reflection, analysis, and transferable lessons.
Case without adequate learning value Rarity alone is insufficient. A Case Report must provide a defined clinical, scientific, ethical, or educational contribution.
Research that does not meet ethical requirements Applicable approval, exemption, consent, registration, participant-protection, and animal-welfare requirements must be satisfied.
Research-integrity violation Fabricated, falsified, plagiarized, improperly manipulated, unlawfully reproduced, or inadequately attributed material is not permitted.
Duplicate or simultaneous submission Previously published manuscripts and manuscripts simultaneously under consideration elsewhere are not accepted, subject to the Journal’s preprint policy.
Promotional or commercial content Content whose principal purpose is advertising or commercial promotion is not considered scholarly editorial material.

A manuscript may fall within the general subject scope and still be declined when its research question, originality, methodology, analysis, ethical compliance, reporting, clarity, or relevance is insufficient for editorial or peer-review consideration.

Formal research-integrity, duplicate-publication, ethical, and editorial requirements are maintained in the Journal’s dedicated Policies.

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Related Author Resources

Determine Suitability

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