Peer Review Policy
The MMJ editorial workflow adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations).
The MMJ editorial workflow of endeavours to produce high-quality papers with an impartial peer-review. Each manuscript must be recommended by at least two reviewers prior to acceptance for publication. The peer-review process is double blinded.
The manuscript is tracked by the editor-in-chief. Once submitted, the manuscript is reviewed by the editor-in-chief who decides on overall suitability.
If the manuscript is deemed to be of insufficient quality or to treat an unsuitable subject, it is rejected straight away. Examples include subjects that have already been well discussed in the journal and nothing new is being offered, or the subject is too theoretical or too detailed to be suitable for a general medical journal.
If the manuscript is potentially suitable, the editor-in-chief will assign it to a minimum of two reviewers. The review is then revised by the editor-in-chief and a decision is taken as to whether to recommend acceptance pending any suggested changes that have been identified by the reviews thus far, or whether the review is too bleak to proceed further, in which case the author is contacted and informed of the rejection. In the former case, the journal is also sent for a technical review (with regard to the physical content, such as quality issues with regard to the images/animations submitted and the accuracy and compliance of the references with the journal's format, that is, the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals).
The full review is then emailed to the authors who may decide to drop the submission, or to comply with the suggested changes. The authors are then expected to return the manuscript, with the suggested changes, along with a covering letter outlining said changes, within a reasonable period of time (up to approximately two months unless any extenuating circumstances present themselves).
The reviewers will be asked to re-review the resubmitted manuscript to determine whether the changes suggested by the reviewers have been effected, and once the editor-in-chief is satisfied with the final version of the manuscript, then the manuscript is accepted and processed for the purposes of publication. If the editor is unhappy with the changes, the authors may be contacted directly with any problems that may have been encountered within the resubmitted manuscript, and once any outstanding issues are settled, then the manuscript is accepted and processed for the purposes of publication.
