Medical Journal of Australia

History

Early origins

The journal was established in 1856, when communication between Australian states and other English-speaking nations entailed long delays. The journal was both a platform for Australian medical research, as well as educational reviews summarising research done overseas. It has since been renamed several times:

• Australian Medical Journal (1856–1895)
• Intercolonial Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery (1895–1896)
• Intercolonial Medical Journal of Australasia (1896–1909)
• Australian Medical Journal (1910–1914)
• Medical Journal of Australia (1914–present, with volume numbering restarting at 1)

MJA today

The current editor of the MJA - appointed in 2023 - is Virginia Barbour.

Elsevier

In 2015, then editor-in-chief Stephen Leeder was suddenly removed after criticising the decision to outsource production of the journal to the global publishing giant Elsevier. Leeder's concerns revolved around an incident in 2009 when Elsevier accepted payments from pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. to publish journals such as the Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of peer-reviewed academic works but were in fact promoting Merck. Following the decision to sack Leeder, all but one of the journal's editorial advisory committee resigned and wrote to Australian Medical Association president Brian Owler asking him to review the decision.

Nicholas Talley succeeded Stephen Leeder as editor-in-chief in September 2015 and the editorial advisory group was subsequently reconstituted.

Wiley

From January 2019, the journal is published by Wiley. Print distribution remains with the Australasian Medical Publishing Company and editorial direction and decisions remain with the journal.

Publishing and access

Having previously published under a subscription model, the journal changed in January 2012 to make all of its research articles free to read online. The journal converted to a hybrid model in January 2019: Authors can either pay an article processing fee to publish fully open access (gold open access) or archive the submitted version of their article in online repositories (green open access). In order to demonstrate commitment to Australian Indigenous health and health awareness, the journal makes all Indigenous health articles free to access without charging authors.

MJA InSight+

MJA InSight+ is a newsletter for medical professionals produced by the MJA. Articles are primarily written by in-house journalists and doctors. It has the largest medical-newsletter subscription membership in Australia.

MJA InSight is published by the Australasian Medical Publishing Company, the publishers of the MJA. The newsletter informs clinicians of key developments and research in medicine and health.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in:

• CAB Abstracts
• CINAHL
• Current Contents/Clinical Medicine
• Current Contents/Life Sciences
• Embase
• Index Medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed
• Science Citation Index
• Scopus According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal had a 2022 impact factor of 11.4, ranking it 17th out of 167 in the category "General and Internal Medicine".

References

References

1. "MJA instructions for authors - types of articles published by the MJA". Australasian Medical Publishing Company.
2. "Information about the Medical Journal of Australia". Australasian Medical Publishing Company.
3. Eadie, Mervyn J.. (2000). "The flowering of a waratah: the history of Australian neurology and of the Australian Association of Neurologists". Libbey.
4. "Australian Medical Journal 1869". University of Melbourne.
5. Leeder, Stephen. (2014-07-07). "The Medical Journal of Australia after 100 years". Medical Journal of Australia.
6. (2015-05-01). "Backlash over decision by Australia's top medical journal to outsource to company with history of 'unethical' behaviour". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
7. Rout, Milanda. (2009-04-09). "Doctors signed Merck's Vioxx studies". [[The Australian]].
8. Grant, Bob. (2009-04-30). "Merck published fake journal". [[The Scientist (magazine).
9. (2015). "Medical Journal of Australia editor sacked over opposition to Elsevier outsourcing". British Medical Journal.
10. "Backlash over Stephen Leeder sacking puts Medical Journal of Australia in peril". The Guardian.
11. (2015-05-04). "Medical journal editor sacked and editorial committee resigns". [[Sydney Morning Herald]].
12. (2015-05-04). "Medical Journal of Australia will be shunned by researchers after editor sacked, academic says". The Guardian.
13. Wilcken, Hugo. (2017-12-15). "MJA Editor-In-Chief is Australia's most cited academic". Medical Journal of Australia.
14. "Med journal's 'integrity secure'". The Australian.
15. (2018-04-30). "John Wiley & Sons to publish Medical Journal of Australia under new partnership". Mumbrella.
16. "About". Australasian Medical Publishing Company.
17. "MJA InSight".
18. "MJA InSight/AboutUs".
19. "Serials cited". [[CABI (organisation).
20. "CINAHL Complete Database Coverage List". [[EBSCO Information Services]].
21. "Master Journal List". [[Clarivate Analytics]].
22. "Embase Coverage". [[Elsevier]].
23. "Medical Journal of Australia". [[National Center for Biotechnology Information]].
24. "Source details: Medical Journal of Australia". [[Elsevier]].
25. (2023). "2022 Journal Citation Reports". [[Clarivate]].