In March 2005 Ali Tonks wrote her first weekly Short Cuts column, a summary of nine papers published in the world’s other main general medical journals. The following year we published the first of Richard Lehman’s weekly journal review blogs.
Earlier this year Ali asked if there was too much overlap between her column (which we renamed Research News in 2012), and Richard’s blog. We felt Ali had a point, and wondered if a better use of her time and talents might be writing more clinical features for us.
This isn’t the end of news about research in the journal. The news team now has responsibility for commissioning news about research papers, and they are tagged as Research News for online publication. There’s a feed of the latest ones published on the research and news channels. There is also a research news section in our online table of contents, which shows all those published in seven day period.
In print, news about research will appear in the main news section. We hope at some point to introduce a section in our iPad edition.
Why am I telling you this now? Well, some readers have noticed that the section has disappeared from the weekly print table of contents listed online, and we realise we could have communicated this better.
Last month Mike Nielson from USR Medical Library told us that each week he sends Research News to 150 colleagues, but has noticed it is no longer there.
I suggested to Mike that from now on he emails the link to Richard’s blog to his collegues after it goes online each Monday. Richard’s blog includes summaries of papers from The Lancet, JAMA, NEJM, Annals of Internal Medicine, and The BMJ. He also uses it to indulge his love of gardening by finishing his blog most weeks with details of a favourite plant.
If, like Mike, you routinely send this content to colleagues, here’s the full link to Richard’s blog: https://stg-blogs.bmj.com/bmj/category/richard-lehmans-weekly-review-of-medical-journals/
Richard is currently taking a well earned break, his first in years, but he’ll be back later this month.
David Payne is digital editor and readers’ editor, The BMJ.