Author Guidelines
Journal of Brown Hospital Medicine is a peer-reviewed publication and accepts original research articles, case reports, reviews, quality improvement articles, etc., of educational value to hospital providers. Articles submitted for publication must not have been published elsewhere or be under consideration for publication. The editors reserve the right to edit any material submitted.
General guidelines
Manuscripts should be completed per Author Instructions and submitted at the JBHM Submission Site via our publishing partner, Scholastica (you will be required to register as a new user). Manuscripts must be formatted in Calibri 12 pt. font, double space. The manuscript sequence should be as follows: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Text, Disclosures/Conflicts of Interest, Funding Information, Acknowledgment, References, Tables and/or Figures. Title page must include Author names, and Affiliations, and corresponding author’s address (Include the name, title, and current position of the corresponding author with mailing address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address). Do not use underlines, rules, page footnotes, or guidelines within the manuscript. All accompanying material can be submitted within the original manuscript at the time of initial submission.
Citation and references
Reference citations in text should be identified by superscript numbers. The superscript number is inserted into the document immediately next to the fact, concept, or quotation being cited. If citing more than one reference at the same point, separate the numbers with commas and no spaces between. Citations and references should follow the AMA 10th edition style. References are listed in numerical order, and in the same order in which they are cited in text. For items with 3 or more authors, include the first author’s surname and then ‘et al’
Citation example: COVID-19 associated pneumonia can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome and rapid deterioration, sometimes leading to invasive mechanical ventilation and death.1
Reference example: Herold T, Jurinovic V, Arnreich C, et al. Elevated levels of IL-6 and CRP predict the need for mechanical ventilation in COVID-19. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2020 Jul;146(1):128-136.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2020.05.008. PMID: 32425269.
Accompanying material: Tables, Figures, Graphs and Charts (total limit of 6)
Figures must be provided in JPEG/JPG or PNG format and should be included in the main article body, not as separate files. We will not convert file types or redraw figures. Figures with sub-parts must be supplied as one figure that contains all sub-parts appropriately labeled. The title and description of each figure should be included in the manuscript. All figures should be supplied with at least 300dpi for the best resolution in the published article.
Tables should be embedded inside the main article file. Tables must be editable, cell-based objects.
Text formatting guidelines for tables:
● Use only separate cells, ordered lists, or unordered lists to separate content within the same cell into individual lines. Do not use spaces, tabs, html tags, or manual line breaks inside a table.
● Symbols indicating statistical significance should appear in the same cell as the value and should not have their own column.
● To highlight individual values in tables, you may use boldface type, italic type, or a single color of shading (note: the shading color is standardized so will not exactly match what you provide). Do not use multiple colors of shading, underline, or font size to highlight values in tables. Do not use color to indicate meaning.
● Text color is limited to black.
Footnotes
Footnotes must be formatted as footnotes in the document to ensure proper conversion during typesetting. These should not be provided as stylized paragraph text (superscript).
Dual publication
Dual publication is defined as publishing an article or parts in more than one journal or venue. Authors are required to verify that manuscripts or parts of manuscripts, including methods sections and data, submitted to JBHM have not been submitted or published elsewhere. JBHM regards material published in a publicly available format (e.g., rejected manuscripts that remain available in discussion format on other journal websites) as published elsewhere. In the event of discovery that a paper published in JBHM was previously or subsequently published elsewhere, the editor will publish a retraction of the paper, and further action might be taken, depending on the circumstances. JBHM will consider for publication manuscripts that have been posted in a recognized not-for-profit preprint archive (such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and PeerJ PrePrints).
Use of human or animal subjects
All uses of human or animal subjects in research published in JBHM must conform to all institutional, regional, or national ethical and legal standards that apply. Written permission or consent must be obtained from the subject(s) prior to submitting the manuscript. The editor reserves the right to request in writing the approval of the local or regional institutional review board decision regarding the manuscript. The Consent form can be downloaded here.
Acknowledgments
JBHM expects all authors to acknowledge the individuals or institutions that provided intellectual, financial, and logistic support for their work. Authors should provide grant numbers and contract numbers as appropriate. Individuals who contributed substantially to the work or manuscript but are ineligible as authors should also be recognized. Referees contribute substantial time and effort to reviewing, and their constructive criticism of manuscripts and any other contributions should be acknowledged when appropriate.
Financial disclosure
Authors are required to disclose any substantive financial interests in the publication of a paper when the manuscript is submitted.
Conflicts of interest
The potential for conflict of interest and bias exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (e.g., financial gain). Authors must disclose financial interests such as employment, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, as well as any personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion which may inappropriately influence their actions. If none exist, the statement “Conflict of Interest: The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest” should be included in the manuscript. The integrity of the review process requires that the senior editors, associate editors, and referees disclose any conflicts of interest before agreeing to handle or review a manuscript. These disclosures will be listed on the Editorial Board page of the journal website.
Errors
All manuscripts will be carefully edited to ensure that they are well-written and technically correct. All facts presented in the text are supported by data presented in tables, figures, and appendices. However, ultimately, authors are responsible for the content of their papers and should be diligent during the preparation and editing stages. Content published in online-only appendices and files usually is not edited by JBHM personnel, so authors should be particularly diligent about checking these files for accuracy and completeness. If an error is discovered after an article has been published, authors are urged to contact the editor and publish an erratum. Errata are permanently associated with the original article when published in the electronic version of the journal. All manuscripts, reviews, and decisions are privileged and will be kept confidential.
JBHM Policy on Generative Artificial Intelligence
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools has provided a rapid and easily accessible tool for composition, editing, and proofreading of manuscripts. JBHM acknowledges the use of such tools by authors and has instituted the following policies regarding manuscripts containing content created through generative AI.
A language generating tool cannot be listed as an author. Authors should only use generative AI technologies to improve readability and language of the work. Generative AI should not be used to replace researcher tasks such as producing scientific insights, analyzing, and interpreting data, or drawing scientific conclusions. When using language generating tools it is the responsibility of the author to review and edit the content generated. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the content contributed by generative AI and included in the final work.
Any AI tools used, outside of generating language, that are part of formal research design or methods need to be fully documented in the methodology section and include a description of the process and the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers used, as well as the manufacturer. The authors must indicate in a cover letter, note to the editor, or in the Acknowledgements sections that AI tools were used and to what extent. JBHM acknowledges that AI language generating tools can be valuable to those for whom English is not their first language and sees generative AI as an opportunity to increase equity in publishing.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is intellectual property theft and will not be tolerated. JBHM defines plagiarism as the unauthorized use of written, spoken, or graphical material belonging to someone other than the author(s). Material quoted directly from another source should be placed in quotation marks, and the page on which the quotation can be found should be listed in the citation. Paraphrased material also must be accompanied by a citation and page reference or a notation of personal communication. In general, extensive use of quotations and paraphrasing is strongly discouraged. Material and data already published by an author in another paper or publicly available report, whether printed or electronic, also may not be quoted, summarized, repeated, or paraphrased without proper attribution.
Every manuscript submitted to JBHM is screened for plagiarism upon submission. If plagiarism, whether intentional or inadvertent, is discovered later in the review or publication process, the incident should be reported immediately to the senior editor, who will verify the facts of the incident and contact the author for an explanation. The author will be given an opportunity to explain the situation and correct the problem in a manuscript or retract a published paper. Should an author decline to correct the problem in a manuscript, the manuscript will be rejected for plagiarism without the possibility of resubmission. Further action might be taken depending on the circumstances. Should an author decline to retract a published paper, the editor will publish a retraction.
Copyright
Works published in JBHM are available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license. This applies to all content published by the journal. The authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.
Terms: Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 (CC-BY-NC) – Anyone is free to share and adapt works from JBHM for non-commercial purposes under this license as long as they give credit for the original creation. Attribution should be given to “Journal of Brown Hospital Medicine.”
Open Access
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access (https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/).
Article Processing Fee (APC)
The journal does not charge article processing fees.
Publisher
JBHM is owned and published by the Department of Medicine at Brown University (https://brownmed.org/).
Advertising in Brown Hospital Medicine
Currently, JBHM does not accept advertisements.
Funding
JBHM is owned by the Department of Medicine at Brown University and receives support to promote scholarship and academic excellence at Brown and within Hospital Medicine at large. The Senior Editors, Associate Editors, other Board members, and peer-reviewers are not compensated (https://brownmed.org/).
Distribution Model/Archiving
The journal is open access and an online-only journal published quarterly. Journal content and manuscripts are archived in Portico.
