Editorial Policies

1. Objectives and scope

A Brazilian Medical Students journal (BMS) is a scientific journal organized by the Publication, Research and Extension Team of the International Federation of Medical Students Association of Brazil (IFMSA Brazil).

BMS aims to propagate scientific evidence through its publications and advocates for Open Science and Access to Research. Its thematic scope encompasses Collective Health, Health Inequalities; Education, Skills Development and Academic Mobility; Transparency in Research, and Clinical Patient Care.

2. Editorial process

2.1. Peer Review Process

The BMS has a blinded Peer Review model for reviewers and authors. Reviewers and editors keep the content of articles confidential until publication. The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors will have final authority on articles. Our reviewers sign the Submission and Exclusivity Term and declare any conflicts of interest. If there is a conflict of interest, the paper will be forwarded to another reviewer.

2.2. Peer Review Process Flowchart

After article submission, the journal Peer Review process begins with Screening, performed by the Editors. The editors can reject the article or send it to the reviewers at this stage. If the article is sent to reviewers, it will be evaluated according to the BMS Editorial Policy for Reviewers. The next step is the appreciation of the Reviewers' Opinions by the Editors and, at that moment, the Decision on the manuscript takes place, which will be one of three possible paths: 

  • Direct acceptance 
  • Acceptance with major or minor corrections: it will be necessary to carry out the changes suggested by the reviewers, and the article will be resubmitted to the BMS for a new review
  • Rejection

If approved directly or after adjusting the changes suggested by the reviewers, the article goes to the Content Editor, who will be responsible for correcting the writing and language of the text. Finally, the article will be published after the Design Editor's processing.

2.3. Authorship and acknowledgments

The BMS authorship policy is based on the four criteria of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) to define the authors of an article. 

Authors must meet all four criteria. They are: 

  • Substantial contributions to conception, work design, and data analysis; 
  • Elaboration of all stages of the work or review it critically as crucial intellectual content; 
  • Approval of the final version to be published; 
  • I agree to be responsible for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions regarding the accuracy or completeness of any part are appropriately investigated and resolved. 

Corresponding Author: The corresponding author is primarily responsible for communicating with the journal through email during the submission process, peer review and publication process. The corresponding author must answer editorial questions promptly and be available after publication to respond to criticisms of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal. 

Acknowledgments: These contributors do not meet the four criteria above. Examples of activities that do not qualify as authorship are: obtaining funding; general supervision of a research group or administrative support; writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or collectively, and their contributions must be specified.

2.4. Provenance of Articles

At the end of each published article, regardless of the type of manuscript, BMS will add a statement explaining the article's origin. The options are:

  • Non-commissioned; external peer review;
  • Not commissioned; internal peer review;
  • Commissioned; external peer review;
  • Commissioned; internal peer review;
  • Commissioned; based on the author's idea; external peer review;
  • Commissioned; based on the author's idea; internal peer review.

2.3. Monitoring the Submission Status

After submitting the manuscript, the authors will be notified via e-mail about the article's status.

2.6. What happens to your manuscript after it is accepted and published

Once your manuscript has been accepted, all correspondence will be sent to the corresponding author's email address. Typically, you can expect the following process:

  • You will receive an email with the following:
    • Timeline for responding to the BMS editorial board with corrections suggested by reviewers and instructions for highlighting changes made to the manuscript;
    • Editorial body contact email.
  • Once the corrected manuscript is received, the content and design editors, as per their obligations, will:
    • Clean up the file formatting;
    • Edit the content;
    • Adjust typographic composition;
    • Edit the design.

If the reviewers, content or design editors have more questions, the authors will be contacted by email. We expect authors to make the requested changes to the manuscript within one week. Let the editorial board know if you cannot meet this deadline. Our editorial board will review any changes highlighted by the authors.

After publication

All manuscripts will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. The authors are free to:

  • Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  • Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material for commercial purposes.

The licensor cannot revoke these rights as long as you abide by the license terms.

Post-Publication Correction Request

If authors notice an error in their published article, they should email the BMS Editor-in-Chief, who will advise them whether a correction can be made.

2.7. Dispute Process

If you believe we wrongly rejected your article, please send a letter to our associate editor responsible (if any) or email [email protected]. Do not submit a revised version of your article at this stage.

If your challenge letter is accepted, the editor-in-chief and associate editor will invite you to submit a revised version of your article, which will again go through the peer review process. We emphasize that the invitation to send a revised version does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted since the article will be analyzed again by the BMS reviewers.

In addition, BMS will consider only one appeal letter per manuscript. Therefore, include as much detail in the letter as possible. If we have provided comments from the peer reviewers and any editorial board member, please respond to them point by point in your dispute letter. It will be easier for us to decide with a very detailed letter.

2.8. Transfer Service

BMS does not offer transfer services for the re-submission of the article in other journals in case of the rejection of manuscripts.