About Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine

What is Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine?

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of the philosophy of medicine and biology, and the ethical aspects of clinical practice and research. It also considers papers at the intersection of medicine and humanities, including the history of medicine, that are relevant to contemporary philosophy of medicine and bioethics.

Content overview

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine considers the following types of articles:

• Research: original contributions to the intersection of philosophy, ethics, or humanities and medicine.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal.
• Case reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, or describe a philosophical or ethical dilemma.
• Book reviews: summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate the books overall usefulness to the intended audience and are usually 400 to 2500 words.

Peer review policies

Associate Editors will appoint two reviewers for each paper. Preferably one reviewer will have clinical expertise, and one reviewer will have expertise in philosophy or ethics. A standardised rating sheet will be used to help the co-editor reach a final decision about whether a manuscript should be accepted for publication.

Edited by Michael Schwartz and Dan J. Stein, Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine is supported by an international Editorial Board.

Publishing in Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine

All articles will be listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and will be covered by PubMed Central, MEDLINE and Scopus.

Articles in Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Philos Ethics Humanit Med 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine however, has taken this further by making all its content Open Access.

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also in repositories at the University of Potsdam in Germany, at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with the Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine will be available.

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.