The BMJ wants its research papers to help doctors make better decisions, which is why they are open access and free to view. But to deliver on the pledge our research also needs to be scientifically valid, clinically relevant, widely read and cited, and appeal to international readers. Each year we get more than 3000 […]
Category: Readers’ editor
Readers’ editor: Abbreviations and patient safety
In January this year a hospital pharmacist contacted us after a colleague had questioned a prescription for amlodipine 10 mg four times a day for migraine. She contacted the prescriber, who said he had got the dose from this clinical review about pharmacological prevention of migraine published in The BMJ. […]
Readers’ editor: An evening with Itchy Sneezy Wheezy
Last week’s print BMJ included a 14 page supplement about BMJ Awards, held a week earlier in London. If you didn’t see it, here’s a link. The BMJ Awards website lists all the winners, along with pictures from the night. The BMJ Awards are now five years old. The event goes from strength to strength. Next […]
Readers’ editor: Free pens and memory sticks
I spent yesterday at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, talking to readers of the BMJ. The medical school library had organised an open day and a sales colleague had organised a BMJ stand, so I joined him to discuss our plans for the BMJ website with both qualified doctors and medical students. […]
Readers’ editor: BMJ cruise, anyone?
Readers of the Radio Times can visit locations used in the filming of Sir David Attenborough’s Africa on a tailor made tour offered by the 90 year old UK listings magazine. The Africa trip is one of dozens of destinations listed on RT Travel page and the latest example of how publishers are increasingly thinking like […]
Readers’ editor: Crazy eggs and the BMJ in a mobile world
Each year the BMJ runs an online reader survey. The survey is mainly multiple choice but there is also a free text question where we ask readers: “What single improvement to bmj.com would make the most difference to you?” Every year the most popular response is “Make it free.” There are other recurring responses to […]
Readers’ editor: Video abstracts
Cuba’s population witnessed huge economic change after losing the former Soviet Union as a trading partner in 1989. Food shortages caused by the downturn led to obesity rates falling from 12% to 7% in six years, an average weight loss of between 4-5kg across the whole population. The country also introduced new green policies, including […]
Readers’ editor: What is a “BMJ man (or woman)?”
In the early 1990s I spent the weekend at the home of a friend’s parents, both of them GPs. I’d recently started work as a political news reporter on the GP magazine Pulse. “Never read it,” said my friend’s dad. “I’m a BMJ man through and though.” He’s now retired, but whenever I visit a […]
Readers’ editor: Pharma advertising in the BMJ
In 2011 research physician Tristan Barber responded to an editor’s choice on conflicts of interest, saying: “Reading the current BMJ and noting several letters regarding conflicts of interest, it was particularly distracting to have the front cover being a fold-out advertisement for a pharmaceutical product. “As a consequence I was very aware of all of […]
Readers’ editor blog: Our Indian readers, and why there’s more of them
At the beginning of 2013 bmj.com’s most accessed article in India typically received between 100 and 200 views. In three months the figure has more than doubled. In the first full week of January there were 9,784 visits to bmj.com from India. The figure has been rising since. Last week there were 12,121. In November 2012 […]