Submissions

Author Guidelines

Introduction
The Editorial Process Medphoenix JNMC follows the principles and publishing ethics guidelines of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME), Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), WAME, CSE guidelines.

The aim of MED PHOENIX is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly articles that promote in increased usage and bring positive impact in medical knowledge and research activities. Considering these facts, MedPhoenix JNMC grants the permission to read, copy, print, download, distribute, search, or link to the full texts of these articles which is available online (www.nmcbir.edu.np) freely. At present, authors do not have to pay for submission, processing or publication of manuscripts in MED PHOENIX.

The submitted manuscripts are duly acknowledged and initially reviewed for possible publication by the Editors with the understanding that they are being submitted only to the Medphoenix, JNMC, have not been published, simultaneously submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere.

FOCUS AND SCOPE
MED PHOENIX accepts original research papers, review articles, case reports, brief reports, viewpoints, clinical experience and letter to the editor containing new insight into any aspect of Medical, Dental and Allied Health Sciences that are neither published nor being considered for publication elsewhere. The journal is particularly interested and welcomes papers in basic and clinical medical sciences, medical education, public health, hospital and healthcare management. Any attempt at dual publication will lead to automatic rejection, may prejudice acceptance of future submissions.

ARTICLE PROCESSING FEES
MED PHOENIX does NOT charge authors article submission fees and it does NOT charge article processing fees.

Authorship
MED PHOENIX adheres to the policy published and regularly updated by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). For detailed and updated information please visit - http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

All authors should meet all four following criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors.

1. Substantial contributions to the conception, design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or critical revision for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
5. The individuals who had contributed to the study but do not meet all the above four criteria of authorship should be acknowledged in acknowledgement section.

The corresponding author of the article has to confirm all individuals listed as authors meet the appropriate authorship criteria, that no-one who qualifies for authorship has been omitted from the list, that written authorization has been received from all co-authors, that contributors and all funding sources (for authors and contributors) have been properly acknowledged and that authors and contributors have approved the acknowledgement of their contribution.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have seen, approved and are fully conversant with the contents of the manuscript. All authors are responsible for the accuracy of the manuscript, including all statistical calculations.

Rejection: The manuscripts with insufficient originality or insignificant message, serious scientific and technical flaws are rejected. However, we do encourage the author to resubmit after the revision if the research was conducted scientifically. The preliminary rejection of the manuscript is related to; manuscript being out of scope, manuscript not formatted correctly, not following checklist and guidelines accurately, submission below publishable standards, incomplete submission (e.g. lack of ethical approval letter for research article). If it passes through preliminary rejection, it will go through proper peer review. The final rejection could be due to lack of originality, flaws in the methods section, generalizing and exaggerating the finding not supported by aims and objective including the methodology, peer reviewers' comment not properly answered or unanswered, plagiarism, publication misconduct and more. If you follow the Medphoenix guideline in detail, you can avoid preliminary rejection and minimize the final rejection of your submission.

We truly value your hard work and wish to publish most of the submissions to the Medphoenix, JNMC. However, as we stated earlier, we follow the principles of COPE, CSE, WAME, ICJME, DOAJ, OASPA guidelines. Hence, we have to maintain the highest standard of scientific values in our work. Therefore, we urge you to help us to improve science together. We hope that the rejection of your current submission will not deter you to continue submitting your work to the Medphoenix.

Publication and Decision Time: Time to first decision overall (average) within 7-10 days for initial decision (without review); 60 days (with the review). Those articles which have been submitted six months to a year ago undergo auto-pruning (automatic declining). It happens due to one of the following reasons i) to iii) or due to loss of contact with the authors.

If you find encounter delay and find no update on your Medphoenix submission account, which could be due to;
i) submission was incomplete or 
ii) submission was without following Medphoenix format and supplementary documents or 
iii) there is an issue with your submission (e.g. ethical issues or research misconduct or related)

Because of any of the above issues or any other reasons, if you do not receive any information or update about your submission within 2-4 weeks, please contact editorial Office of Medpheonix as soon as possible. We will make sure that your voice is heard and addressed appropriately.

N.B. Please do not contact on personal email, social media or phone number to Editor-in-Chief, Editorial team or Medphoenix staff related to your submission. All communication must be made via Medphoenix official email address only. Medphoenix best editorial practice ensures that it publishes the highest standard articles. 

The Peer Review Process
The manuscripts are then sent to two expert peer reviewers blinded to the contributor’s identity and vice versa for meticulous review, inputs and comments. The final decision on whether to accept or reject the article are taken by the Editor-in-Chief based on editorial board and peer reviewers. The contributors are informed about the rejection/acceptance of the manuscript with the peer reviewer’s comments. Accepted articles have to be resubmitted after making the necessary changes or clarifying questions made during the peer review process.
The accepted articles are edited for grammatical, punctuation, print style and format errors and page proofs and are sent to the corresponding author who should return them within three days. Non-response to galley proof may result in the delay of publication or even rejection of the article.

Reporting Guidelines
The guidelines listed below should be followed where appropriate. Please use these guidelines to structure your article. Completed applicable checklists, structured abstracts and flow diagrams should be uploaded with your submission; these will be published alongside the final version of your paper.

• ARRIVE guidelines(Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments)
• CARE(for case report)
• CONSORT Statement(for reporting of randomised controlled trials: please use the appropriate extension to the CONSORT statement, including the extension for writing abstracts)
• TREND(`for nonrandomized evaluations of behavioural and public health interventions)
• COREQ(for reporting qualitative research - interviews and focus groups)
• STARD(for reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies)
• STROBE(for reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)
• PRISMA(for reporting of systematic reviews)
• PRISMA-P(for reporting of systematic review and meta-analysis protocols)
• MOOSE(for reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies)
• TRENDQuasi-experimental / non-randomized evaluations
• SPIRIT (for reporting protocols for RCTs)
• STREGA(for reporting of gene-disease association studies)
• CHEERS(for reporting of health economic evaluations)

The Equator Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency Of health Research) provides a comprehensive list of reporting guidelines.

EDITORIAL
This is written in each issue by the editor or members of editorial board and is not open for external authors unless invited.

It is submitted by an editorial board or invited piece on most pertinent issues on Health in Nepal or in the world.  It undergoes fast-track peer review process reviewed.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
JNMC accept researches conducted in the field of basic and clinical medical sciences, forensic science, medical education, public health, hospital and healthcare management, allied health sciences and research and publication ethics, with the maximum length of 2500-3500 world (excluding abstract of 250 words).

Randomized controlled trials, interventional studied, studies of screening and diagnostic test, outcome studies, cost effectiveness analyses, case-control series and surveys with high response rate.

It undergoes rigorous peer review process. Please expect lots of communication from the JNMC.

CASE REPORTS and CASE SERIES
Up to 1000 words (excluding references up to 10 and abstract up to 150 words) Photographs (maximum 3).

This section includes report of a case with literature review that includes, an unexpected association between diseases or symptoms, an unexpected event in the course of observing or treating a patient, findings that shed new light on the possible pathogenesis of a disease or an adverse effect, unique or rare feature of a disease, unique therapeutic approaches, approaches to a case report, challenging case , describe changes in one or more patients with chronic conditions over an extended time period, report on two or more patients with similar characteristics who received different interventions and had different outcomes, atypical management of patients with common problems, atypical patient presentations, apply theory to patient or client management, report on an administrative or academic experience.

Please use CARE Case Report Checklist while preparing your case report.
It undergoes peer review process. Please download Case Report Consent Form, get a written consent and put the original on the patient chart and provide a copy of it during your submission. 

The journal welcomes new/ very rare/ interesting cases with clinical significance or implications.

REVIEW ARTICLE
Review Article: Systemic critical assessments of literature and data sources. Up to 4000 words (excluding references 50-100 and abstract 250 words). It undergoes rigorous peer review process. 

Review articles are which summaries the current state of understanding on a topic and analyses or discuss research previously published by others, rather than reporting new experimental results. They are very thorough literature reviews that identify historical and current trends in the research, important scholars in the field, foundational articles, major discoveries, gaps in the research (areas for further exploration), and current debates or controversies.  

SHORT COMMUNICATION
Maximum 2000 words (excluding references of maximum 30 and abstract of maximum 250 words).

These are research article, which doesn’t fit exactly into research article but findings, are interesting, e.g. pilot study. It undergoes peer review process.  These are short, peer-reviewed articles focusing on a high-quality, hypothesis-driven, self-contained piece of original research and/or the proposal of a new theory or concept based on existing research. They should not be preliminary reports or contain purely incremental data and should be of significance and broad interest to the field of medical sciences.

MEDICAL EDUCATION
JNMC accepts perspective on undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education. All issues of current interest, including teaching methods, curriculum reform, the training of medical teachers, the selection of entrants and assessment techniques, curriculum development, evaluations of performance, assessment of training needs and evidence-based medicine are accepted, with word limit up to 1500 words excluding abstract of 150 words. It undergoes peer review process. 

VIEWPOINT
These articles are personal views and allow you to express your own point of view on any issues relevant to health. The article in this section is based on issues related to health sciences to raise the voice, awareness, new ideas, thought to provoke concepts, and personal expert opinion to improve the health.

maximum 800 words excluding reference up to 5-8

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
This should be short, decisive observation. They should not be preliminary observations that need a later paper for validation (maximum 500 words and 5 references).

BOOK REVIEW
This section is invited by the editorial board. 

PEER REVIEW PROCESSThe Executive  Editor, together with the editorial board will ensure following peer review policy:

1. Double-blind: The manuscript will be blinded when sending out for review. The author is anonymous to the reviewer and the reviewer is anonymous to the author as well.
2. One-stage review: The reviewer is involved in the initial review of the manuscript only, i.e. not involved in evaluating the revisions made by the author based on the reviewer’s comments. Rather, the Chief Editor carries the manuscript forward following the initial review.
3. In rare, controversial and special circumstances; Two-stage review: Those papers that require revision as suggested by the reviewer will be sent back to that same reviewer for him/her to evaluate the manuscript once again after revised re-submission from the author.
   
   The author has to submit their manuscript according to JNMC section policy.
   - All submitted article will undergo international peer review with blinding for two peer reviewers, simultaneously. If the decision conflicts between two, it will be sent to third peer reviewer.
   - The typical review will take minimum 4-6 weeks which includes 2 weeks for peer review and remaining weeks for peer review handling process. However, this may take little longer due to unseen workloads.
   - When the article is received from peer reviewer there will be one of the following outcomes and the decision choices include:
4. Accept Submission: The submission will be accepted without revisions.
5. Revisions Required: The submission will be accepted after minor changes have been made according to the reviewer's comment.
6. Resubmit for Review: The submission needs to be re-worked, but with significant changes, may be accepted. It will require a second round of review, however.
7. Resubmit elsewhere: When the submission does not meet the focus and scope of JNMC.
8. Decline Submission: The submission will not be published in the journal.

All comments received from the reviewers will be passed on to the authors within 4-6 weeks after getting back from the reviewers. Regardless of whether or not the submission is accepted for publication, it is essential that appropriate feedback is provided to the contributors.
JNMC respect the views, opinion, comments and decision of the reviewer. However, the right for acceptance and rejection of the manuscript is reserved with the Chief Editor, on the basis of maintaining the integrity of the science, following the guideline of ICJME, WAME, CSE, COPE.
The editors will be responsible for directing the manuscripts to the appropriate reviewers who have the knowledge and/or expertise in the requisite fields.  Each manuscript will be accepted (sometimes on a conditional basis pending suggested changes) or declined based on the reviewers' comments, and other factors by Chief Editor's decisions. In the case of a controversial groundbreaking article that could have a far-reaching impact on the field, further reviews may be sought. The decision ultimately rests with the chief editor.

Peer Reviewers will be provided with Review Guidelines, once they accept to review the submission. Medphoenix will rate reviewers on a five-point quality scale after each review. 

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The JNMC abide by:

1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors for Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals
2. World Association of Medical Editors for best editorial practice
3. Council of Science Editors for best editorial practice
4. Committee on Publication Ethics for practicing good publication ethics

SUBMISSION DOCUMENTS 
Please submit all the following documents while submitting your new manuscript to Medphoenix
1. Forwarding letter
2. Authorship
3. Declaration
4. Manuscript
5. Ethical Approval letter*

*This is for research article only. Ethical approval letter should be taken before starting the research. Any research without ethically approved by recognized ethical review board is of no value. The Ethical Review Board of Nepal Health Research Council is the apex body for looking after the ethics in research in Nepal. 

However, ERB has established institutions review committee in most of the medical college, tertiary care centre hospitals and research centre throughout the country. If you do not belong to such IRC centres, please contact ERB, NHRC for ethical approval of your research. For international author - please provide ethical approval letter from your institutional ethical committee or national body responsible for ethics in research. 

Any submission without above documents and manuscript not in JNMC format will be rejected outright. Therefore to avoid such errors and rejection, please submit your article with all supplementary and required files along with the use of appropriate template given below.

TEMPLATES
The majority of the submitted manuscript lack proper formatting, on the top of that heading and subheading, is not correctly written. Therefore, we encourage you to use appropriate template for your manuscript.
1. Original Article Template
2. Case Report Template
3. Review Article Template
4. Medical Education Template
5. Viewpoint Template
6. Letter to the Editor Template

Added Documents
Please go through Medphoenix checklist and reference preparing a document for your manuscript. However, we use CITING MEDICINE for citation. Incorrect reference and erroneous citation will invalid your paper at Medphoenix
1. JNMC Checklist (must read)

MUST HAVE INFORMATION
To minimize the rejection (or return for revision) of your article please do the followings: 

1. All the documents have to be submitted at once (as listed above).
2. Please use the template for your respective manuscript to avoid error in the heading and subheadings.
3. Please address all the point described in the Medphoenix checklist, references and manuscript preparation guidelines etc.
4. Please do not submit the article that we do not publish (check author guideline for a different type of article we accept).
5. If you have difficulty working on the computer or not good at it particularly Microsoft word document, please seek a professional help to prepare your manuscript according to our need.
6. Email is the preferred methods of communication, therefore, please check your email once a day after you submit an article to We will inform you about the status of your article through our system to the email you at your mail ID which you have provided. We may also contact you anytime for immediate information to speed up the review process. 
7. Please do not contact editorial member's personal telephone numbers but MedphoenixIf you have more queries, please contact us anytime. Help us to help you by providing required information as listed on this page.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.