What is the place of a student medical journal?

To the Editor: “Student medical journals” are a very broad church, encompassing everything from pseudo-magazines to rigorously peer-reviewed publications. In April this year, a national journal of the latter variety was launched here in Australia: the Australian Medical Student Journal (AMSJ).1

The AMSJ accepts research, review and opinion articles from students of medicine or health sciences at Australian universities. The journal’s volunteer staff comprises only medical students, and peer-review is by academics associated with Australian medical schools, or clinicians at Australian teaching hospitals. The inaugural issue could hardly have been more national in its focus, with students from 14 Australian medical schools, covering every state, being represented among the authors. The issue was recently distributed free of charge to thousands of medical students around Australia in both print and electronic formats. After the success of the inaugural issue, we plan to begin biannual production from 2011, continuing in both formats. The AMSJ operates as a not-for-profit student organisation, and printing and other costs are provided for by sponsors, including the Australian Medical Association, Australian General Practice Training, and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

While it is unique in a number of facets, the AMSJ is not the first publication of its kind. The Australian Medical Students’ Association magazine Panacea began life in 1968 as a journal, albeit not peer-reviewed.2 Several individual Australian medical schools have had their own academic publications for varying periods, such as the Sydney University Medical Journal, which was first published around 1905.3 More recently, our counterparts across the Tasman were well ahead of us, with the New Zealand Medical Student Journal releasing its first issue in 2004.4 Further afield, some of the better known student journals are the McGill Journal of Medicine (MJM) in Canada and the Student BMJ in the United Kingdom.

Most student journals fall roughly into one of two categories: those whose focus is primarily instruction and entertainment, with shorter educational or blog-style articles (often written by non-students) having appeal to time-constrained students (eg, Student BMJ); and those that publish academically rigorous student work, perhaps at the expense of reader interest (eg, MJM). The AMSJ has a number of aims (Box), although central to our mission is to transcend this artificial tension and attract student-authored articles that are both thoroughly interesting and academically substantial. The rationale is that anything short of a proper peer-reviewed journal is patronising towards students, but, on the other hand, articles that are not appropriately pitched cause disenchantment.

Medical students have played key roles in the history of medicine: notable discoveries made or shared in by medical students include heparin, insulin, the sinoatrial node, the pancreatobiliary sphincter, ether anaesthesia, islets of Langerhans, and spermatozoa.6 We hope that the AMSJ can continue to promote and foster this tradition of student achievement.