Submissions

Author Guidelines

Instructions for authors

Acta Médica Costarricense (AMC) is the official scientific publication of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica). Its purpose is to disseminate professional and scientific advances in the field of biomedical sciences in Costa Rica and the world. The Journal publishes quarterly unpublished papers related to biomedical sciences, which may be originals, reviews, opinions, brief communications, letters to the editor (including case reports), and editorials. AMC is open access and is addressed to the general medical audience.

Manuscripts submitted for consideration for publication will be received by the Journal on an ongoing basis and submitted for consideration by the Editorial Committee (EC); proposals must pass an initial review by this committee and, subsequently, a review by external peers, who will be anonymous and specialists in the subject. The Journal accepts proposals for articles written in Spanish or English. Manuscripts submitted in inadequate form or that do not comply with the "Instructions for Authors" will be returned.

Articles accepted for publication in AMC become the property of the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos de Costa Rica (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica) and must not have been published in whole or in part, nor submitted simultaneously in any Journal or electronic media, even in another language.

Presentation of the manuscript

Manuscripts should be submitted in Calibri font, size 11, single column, double spaced, letter size, with all sheets numbered consecutively (including figures and tables), in digital form. Tables and figures (with captions) should be on one page each.

Authors must send along with the manuscript the "submission checklist" and the letter of assignment of rights to the AMC Journal. This information can be sent to the email actamedica@medicos. cr, or deposited online, in the management system of the Journal by registering here. The work can only be considered as received after a response email is sent confirming receipt and compliance with the request.

1. General Instructions

The manuscript is arranged as follows: title page, abstract in English and Spanish, main text, acknowledgments and contributors, references, tables, figure legends, and figures.

Title Page

Title. It should be concise, but informative as to the purpose of the paper. Only the first letter of the first word should be capitalized, or the proper names it contains. It should include the necessary information to allow an efficient electronic retrieval; it should not contain abbreviations and in the case of animal studies, it is necessary to mention the species and its scientific name in italics.

Authors. The first name and 2 surnames of all authors should be included (insert a hyphen between the first and second surnames), their institutional affiliation (current place of work, with at least three institutional levels, and the city, state, and country), and the ORCID for each one. Only those who contributed substantially to the design of the study, acquisition or analysis of the information, drafting of the manuscript or critical revision and approval of the final version should be listed as authors. It is necessary to specify the contribution of each person to the work, according to these areas indicated in the letter of assignment of rights.

Descriptors. 4 - 5 keywords in Spanish and English (keywords). These are terms that provide guidance on the subject of the publication and allow it to be retrieved in digital media. They must be terms listed in the DeCs.

Short title. Maximum 45 characters

Abbreviations: all abbreviations used in the text, listed in alphabetical order. Only terms used more than 3 times are abbreviated and the abbreviation must be defined after the first mention in the text. Abbreviations should not be used in the abstract or title.

List number of pages, figures, and tables.

Address for correspondence. E-mail address of the person to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Sources of support. List of those who contributed financially, with equipment, medicines, or others.

Conflicts of interest. Detailed declaration of all potential conflicts of interest of the authors.

1. Types of articles and their requirements

Original article

It is the article that communicates the results of the original research. It must contain the following parts:

Abstract. In Spanish and English, maximum 500 words, structured, using the following subheadings: aim, methods, results, and conclusion/s. Abbreviations, references, or footnotes should not be used.

Introduction. It expresses the purpose of the article, places the topic within the current knowledge, so it avoids a very extensive review of the bibliography or a summary of the results. It states the objective in a clear and precise way (justifies the need and importance of the research).

Methods. The study design, method of participant selection (inclusion and exclusion criteria), instruments, laboratory analyses, procedures, or others used are clearly described in sufficient detail to be reproducible. Manuscripts reporting data obtained in human subjects should include an annotation in the methods section that assures that the study protocol complied with the requirements of the Scientific-Ethical Committee (CEC) of the corresponding center, or in its absence, of a CEC approved according to the Costa Rican Biomedical Research Regulatory Law, and attach the letter of approval of the CEC when the manuscript is submitted. Manuscripts reporting animal experiments should include a note ensuring that the general recommendations for the handling and care of experimental animals were followed. Drugs and chemicals used in the study should be accurately identified, including generic name, dose, and route of administration; statistical analyses and software used should be clearly described; and approved conventional units of measurement (IU or SI) should be used. AMC reserves the right to request the protocol used in the research to clarify any point of the work.

Results. Results must be presented clearly and concisely, in a logical sequence in the text, tables, figures, and illustrations. In this section, data presented in tables or illustrations must not be repeated in the text, nor comments are made on any results. The section cannot be composed only of figures and tables.

Discussion. It does not repeat information provided in another section (introduction, results, or methods); it mentions the new and important aspects contributed by the study and the conclusions that can be drawn from the results. It is convenient to compare and contrast the results with other relevant reports in the bibliography. It points out the limitations of the study and refers to the repercussions on other present or future research. It must not derive conclusions from unfinished studies or propose conclusions not based on the results obtained. It should not be longer than 7 paragraphs and it is not a review of the subject.

Acknowledgments and collaborators. It lists and specifies any financial or other support received for the research. People who are thanked or mentioned must give written approval for the publication of their name.

Statement of the contribution of each author: Must take CREDIT Taxonomy as a reference.

Funding: Indicate the entity that finances the elaboration of the article.

References. The system recommended for biomedical Journals by the ICMJE is followed. This is the standard of the U.S. National Library of Medicine included in the style guide Citing Medicine, The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2nd ed.).

These should be numbered consecutively, according to the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. The title of the Journals should follow the abbreviation cited in Medline (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=Journals). All authors are listed up to a maximum of 6; if there are more than six, et al. must be written after the sixth. All articles in the list of references must be cited in the text and vice versa. The author must be able to provide a complete copy of all articles cited if they are in print, and the unique resource identifier (URI or DOI) if they are in electronic format. Do not use citations from personal communications or unpublished or published material without peer review, including theses, conference material, and documents from ministries and institutions; these should be noted in parentheses in the text (e.g., dissertation, title, author, date, personal communication). Textbooks should not be used as references and should cite at least 15 references.

Examples:

Journal article:

Zalaquett S. Axillary arterial cannulation for extracorporeal circulation. Rev Med Chile. 2003;131:390-396.

Lohse N, Hansen ABE, Pedersen G, Kronborg G, Gerstoff J, Sorensen HT, et al. Survival of persons with and without HIV infection in Denmark. Ann Intern Med. 2007;146:87-95.

Electronic source:

Rupprecht C. Ready for more-than-human? Urban residents' willingness to coexist with animals and plants. Version: 1. SocArXiv [Preprint]. [posted 2016 Jul 13; revised 2016 Dec 07; cited 2017 Feb 15]: [22 p.]. Available from: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/hbcmz/.

Organizations or corporate authors:

World Health Organization. Palliative care: symptom management and end-of-life care. [Internet]. Geneva: WHO; 2004. [cited 2019 Mar 29]. Available from: http://www.who.int/3by5/publications/documents/en/genericpalliativecare082004.pdf.

Tables. They should be self-explanatory, numbered consecutively in the text with Arabic numerals, and each presented individually on a separate sheet, with the number and title and any explanatory notes at the bottom, all double-spaced. Do not use the anglicism table.

Figures. They must be self-explanatory. Include the title in the figure caption, together with a detailed explanation of the figure. Figures, photos, and illustrations should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, according to their first mention in the text. If images are provided, they must be presented in high quality, with good definition. Illustrations and figures that justify it can be published in color. It is suggested to submit an Excel file with the information and the figure. Sufficient information should be provided in the figure caption to interpret the figures without the need to refer to the text.

Reviews

The review article is the one that describes the state of the art in a topic, includes a summary of research, or describes the literature review.

The Editorial Committee will request most of the review articles from experts in the field and will evaluate those submitted without express request, on topics of current biomedical interest, as long as they include an author with clinical or research experience in the area in which the article deals, and provide novel information. The number of authors should be limited to three. This article will follow the same editorial review guidelines as the original articles but must include at least 35 bibliographic citations.

Case Reports

It is the manuscript that presents a case study or description.

Opinion

It consists of communication of current issues in medicine on scientific advances, teaching, health policies and services, bioethical aspects, and others of general medical interest. Opinion articles should be limited to 3000 words and may include 2 figures or tables. The number of authors should be limited to two.

Short communications

They consist of a brief communication of research results.

Only original papers that are concise in their final version will be considered as such. These manuscripts should not exceed 3000 words and should not include more than 2 tables and 2 figures.

Letters to the Editor

These are letters to the Journal that typically comment on a published paper.

Letters concerning articles published in AMC will be approved mainly. They should promote scientific discussion on medical topics and be addressed to the Editorial Committee, indicating that they are to be considered as correspondence and not as an original article. They may contain one figure or table and no more than 500 words and 5 references. They should be limited to 3 authors. The editors reserve the right to edit letters to abbreviate or classify their content.

Valuable clinical cases that make an important contribution to the understanding of pathophysiology, clinical, treatment, or other aspects of the pathology, or that provide material or information of relevance to future research will be published as letters to the editor.

Publishers

These are opinion pieces, political statements, or general comments written by a member of the Editorial Board.

Preferably, editorials should relate to articles published in the same issue of the Journal, or recent issues, or any other topic of relevance to the national medical group. They should be limited to 1500 - 1800 words. They can be submitted by anyone.

III. Editorial process

Manuscripts should be submitted through the online management system of the Journal, indicating there the requirements requested to the authors. In this way, the main author will be able to consult on the site the status of the evaluation process, as well as the definitive acceptance, with modifications to be made or rejection of the manuscript.

The Editorial Committee will begin the evaluation of the work for publication, checking if it fits the thematic coverage of the Journal and meets the standards of publication. In this case, the work will be submitted to external peer review, double-blind, to evaluate the quality and technical and scientific relevance of the proposed article. Manuscripts will be reviewed anonymously by at least 2 experts in the object of study or methodology used. These reviewers or referees will have 15 working days to send the response of their evaluation. In case of a tie, a third reviewer will be sought to decide.

The Editorial Committee, after analyzing the external and internal reports, reserves the right to accept or reject the articles for publication, as well as to introduce stylistic modifications and shorten the texts, if it deems it necessary, committing itself to respect the original content. The guide used by the reviewers of the Journal to evaluate the papers can be downloaded here or requested from the Secretariat of the Editorial Committee.

The reviewed papers that are considered to require modifications before publication will be notified with the evaluation reports of the reviewers, anonymously, so that they can make the appropriate corrections or replicas. A period of 15 calendar days will be granted for the corresponding corrections to be made. If no response is received within 3 months, the article will be excluded from the review process.

Authors of articles accepted for publication will receive the proofs for correction by e-mail, in PDF format. They must return them corrected to the Editorial Committee Secretariat within 48 hours of receipt. Only minor corrections may be made to the content of the original manuscript (see Flowchart of the article evaluation process).