International Journal of Medical and Surgical Sciences

International Journal of Medical and Surgical Sciences, (IJMSS) is a serial and peer-review publication, edited by the Universidad Autónoma de Chile. IJMSS has an international scope, is open access and uses a License Creative Commons of Recognition -Non-Commercial-without derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The contents are available in open access immediately after being published.

Objective: To publish original research papers within the medical and surgical sciences, on all basic scientific aspects of structure, chemistry, developmental biology, physiology and pathology of relevant tissues, microbiology, biomaterials, and behavioral sciences. In general, analytical studies are preferred to descriptive ones.

Vision: IJMSS seeks to be a space for academic discussion and multidisciplinary dialogue in biomedical, medical and surgical sciences in all its aspects, which contributes to scientific communication between research peers and academics in the area.

Aimed to professionals and academics in the field of medical and surgical sciences, health administration, and related specialties.

The Journal Publishes in continuous publication schema (four issues per year), original articles, reviews, short communications and letters to the editor in English and Spanish. The IJMSS has no article processing charges (APC) or article submission charges for any of the editorial processes or publication.

e-ISSN 0719-532X p-ISSN 0719-3904

Frequency [upload]

IJMSS publishes articles under the continuous publication scheme of four issues per year.

Peer review process [upload]

The IJMSS journal submits to external peer review through double blind, all scientific articles received. The procedure includes:

Verify that the work belongs to the areas declared by the journal.

Meets journal publication standards (Harvard modified).

Sending by the editor-in-chief of the original manuscript to two external academic peers, who will carry out the double-blind evaluation.

Reviewers must complete the evaluation form based on the declared criteria and conclude a) Accept the submission, b) Publishable with modifications, c) Correct and resubmit for review; d) Recommend another Journal and e) Not publishable.

Article evaluation criteria [upload]

Has title and abstract in English and Spanish

Coherence and clarity of presentation

Use of sources and bibliographic references

Methodological rigor

Scientific relevance

Conforms to formatting and spelling

With the evaluation delivered by the external reviewers, the editor-in-chief makes the decision according to the following categories:

a) Accept shipment

b) Publishable with modifications

c) Correct and resubmit

d) Rejected

Articles with an ab and c rating must submit a modified version within two weeks. In cases where there is a controversy between two reviewers, the editor-in-chief can request a third review and rule on discrepancies.

The papers are sent for evaluation to expert reviewers on the subject and to the entity of origin of the research and the publishing entity.

When one of the two reviewers disagrees on the recommendation, a third is assigned and a majority decides the determination.

The reviewers have 45 days to evaluate the articles and give a recommendation to the editor about the chances of the article being published. This decision is immediately communicated to the authors. If the authors must make minor changes, they are given a period of 1 to 2 weeks to resubmit the corrections, otherwise, the article will go through the editing and production process to be published. The process from when an article is sent to when it is published ranges from 3- 5 months.

The works use the Microsoft Word format to perform the relevant evaluations and the OJS through evaluation forms.

Evaluation criteria

Verify thematic membership

Adjustment to publication standards

The document will be evaluated by two external peers in free format, in the table available on the OJS platform. As in the case of research articles, the reviewers evaluate globally according to the categories: a) Accept submission; b) Publishable with modifications; c) Reassessable and d) Not publishable.

Based on these considerations, the editor will finally decide between the acceptance or rejection of its publication.

For letters to the editor, thematic membership and adjustment to the journal's standards will be verified. These works will not be subjected to external evaluation, and it will be the editor's decision to publish the works or not.

AI Tools Policy [upload]

Policy on the use of AI tools by IJMSS authors and peer reviewers

IJMSS prohibits listing artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT or large language models (LLM), as authors in its publications. This policy aligns with the emerging consensus among scholarly organizations, including the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which holds that AI tools do not meet authorship criteria as they cannot take ethical or legal responsibility for the work produced.

Authors submitting to IJMSS must ensure their work is original, responsible, and adheres to scholarly standards when utilizing material created by others. If AI tools are used to generate text, images, graphics, or gather data, authors are required to disclose this use to the editors and provide transparency in their manuscripts. This disclosure allows readers to understand the role of AI tools in the development of the work.

Authors are accountable for the content of their manuscripts, including sections created with AI tools, and must bear responsibility for any ethical violations resulting from their use.

Additionally, the use of large language models or other AI tools to assist in the peer review process is strictly prohibited.

Open access policy [upload]

The International Journal of Surgical Medical Sciences (IJMSS) provides immediate open access to its content, based on the principle declared by the university (Res.103/2017) that Approves Criteria and Procedures for the creation of Scientific Journals of the Autonomous University of Chile and the institutional subscription to the Open Access policies to the academic, scientific and public community in general.

This journal provides free and immediate access to its content under the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global knowledge exchange. The publication is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The rights of the works published in this Journal are the property of the author and they are free to distribute and disseminate the same sources if the source of publication is correctly cited, and these acts are not for commercial purposes.

Preprint repositories [upload]

IJMSS authors can deposit manuscripts sent to the journal on preprint servers, only when they have been accepted for publication in the editing and production process before publication.

Statement of ethics and negligence [upload]

Full text of Ethical principles of the IJMSS

International Journal of Medical and Surgical Sciences (IJMSS) bases its editorial processes on the code of ethics of the Ethics Committee for Publications (COPE) and the Declaration of Helsinki, which defines the ethical principles for medical research on human beings, including research in human material. and identifiable information.

Authors must declare in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained from the subjects who participated in the research or case report. The right to privacy of individuals must be respected, published information must be adequately anonymized and dignity and respect for human rights must always be safeguarded.

Animal experiments must follow international guidelines, such as ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/) or European Union Directive 2010/63 (https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm) or the NIH Guidelines (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978), this should be indicated in the manuscript.

To comply with these principles, the different actors in the editorial process establish the following commitments:

Editorial Committee Responsibilities [upload]

The peer-review process carried out by the International Journal of Medical Surgical Sciences is carried out through double blindness and is declared by the Editorial Committee so that the authors know the results with the evaluation criteria. The Editorial Committee will always be willing to explain and detail any controversy in the evaluation process.

Responsibilities of the editors [upload]

Request and verify the documentation that supports compliance with the protocol of ethical research standards such as: the informed consent of the people participating in the research, the evaluation of the clinical and non-clinical biomedical research protocol by the research committees, ethics of its institutions and others that conform to ethical, legal and juridical criteria that are regulated at the national and international level.

Guarantee the selection of highly qualified reviewers and with the least possible biases.

Evaluate exclusively based on the scientific merit of the contents, without discrimination of any kind (ethnic, political, gender, economic, institutional, among others).

Do not reveal information related to the articles received to people outside the editorial process.

Maintain the confidentiality of the manuscripts, their authors and reviewers, guaranteeing the anonymity of the process.

Do not use the content of the articles for your own research without the express consent of the authors.

Strictly comply with the publication times for the editorial process (maximum period of 14 weeks) and a maximum number of lags between acceptance and publication, that is, no accepted article can remain unpublished two numbers in a row.

Editors will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of articles in which there have been instances of research misconduct.

Editors will never encourage any inappropriate behavior, nor will they knowingly allow such inappropriate behavior to occur.

If the Journal´s editors learn of any allegations of misconduct in the investigation, the editors will treat the allegations appropriately.

Editors should always be ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Evaluator's responsibilities [upload]

Verify that the works include in their methodologies the declaration of ethics of the authors, compliance with the protocols and documentation that evidently supports their adherence to the rules and procedures. In the cases that are not included, inform the editors of the journals to make rejection decisions or request modifications.

Carry out a critical, constructive and honest review of the scientific quality of the article received.

Inform the Editor in case of conflict of interest, refusing to carry out the review due to possible biases.

Refuse to carry out an evaluation if it does not correspond to your field of knowledge or specialization.

Evaluate the works within the established term, immediately informing the Editor in case of impossibility of compliance at the time of receiving the request.

Consider each assigned manuscript as confidential, and these texts cannot be discussed with other people without the express consent of the Editor.

Evaluate objectively, without establishing personal judgments about the authors of the contributions.

Justify their evaluations based on the guideline established by IJMSS (available on the journal's website).

Notify editors if substantial parts of the work have already been published or are being revised for another publication.

Indicate with precision the bibliographic references of fundamental works possibly forgotten by the author.

Inform the editor of any similarity or superposition of the manuscript with other published works.

Consider the information obtained during the peer review process as confidential, not being able to use it for personal purposes.

Author's responsibilities [upload]

Guarantee that there is no undue experimentation with human beings and ensure the validity of informed consent and the protection of other forms of rights and well-being of people subjected to scientific experimentation.

Present an original work, which does not contain parts of other authors or other fragments of works without the corresponding reference.

Present true and unaltered data.

Do not publish articles in which the same results are repeated in more than one scientific journal, nor present a manuscript simultaneously in more than one journal.

Provide a rigorous indication of the sources and earnings indicated in the article.

Include those people who have made a real contribution to the article, classifying the authors according to their level of responsibility and involvement in the document.

Do not include other authors in the middle of the editorial process. It is not allowed by the editorial policy of the IJMSS.

Make available the sources or data on which the research was based, in case of a duly justified request by the Editor.

Explicitly declare the absence of conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the proposed interpretations and indicate any funding from agencies and/or projects from which the research article derives.

All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of errors, in case of detection.

Plagiarism detection policy [upload]

The IJMSS has a plagiarism detection policy, which aims to ensure that authors comply with the ethical standards necessary to ensure a process of transparency in the publication process.

The journal editors carry out the plagiarism detection process through the Turnitin software, and it is carried out in the first edition stage (once the article is received). When plagiarism is detected, it is rejected immediately, and the perpetrators are informed of the situation.

In the same way, the reviewers are asked, during the evaluation stage, to report if they detect any form of plagiarism in the manuscript.

When a lack of investigation is detected, the editors have the duty to inform the editorial committee so that the necessary measures are taken retractions, rectifications, apologies, clarifications. Editors should always be ready to post corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Erratum, retractions, clarifications and apologies [upload]

The response to a posted error depends on the nature of the error and the person or organization bringing the problem to your attention. When a lack of research is detected, the editors have the duty to inform the editorial committee so that the necessary measures are taken retractions, corrections, apologies, clarifications. Editors and copywriters should always be ready to post corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

For peer-reviewed content, error types can be classified as:

Erratum: if the journal makes a significant error that may affect the work or the reputation of the authors, the published notification is called an erratum. Correction of errors: if the author or authors make a major mistake, all authors must approve and sign the corrections (correction document) or the journal must be informed of their opinions in disagreement.

Retraction: if the results are not valid, all co-authors must sign a retraction explaining the error and how it affected the conclusions. This will be submitted for publication and is the most consequential type of error.

Addendum: If additional information about an article is posted, you can include an Editorial Concern. It is attached to documents that the personal editor considers require additional explanation for understanding. Once the communication to the editor has been received, the Editorial Committee is summoned to make a joint decision on the resulting measure, which when decreed, is communicated to the author and is carried out as soon as possible.

All determinations are made maintaining the integrity and prestige of the journal and its authors. The IJMSS is governed by COPE standards when developing these processes in editorial practice.

Digital preservation policy [upload]

The specific preservation actions used for IJMSS digital resources largely depend on the source and type of content, as well as existing technology, experience, and ongoing support. Conservation actions based on current resources can be broken down as follows:

Subscription-based resources:

Since these resources are not owned or controlled by the journal, they cannot be managed by the journal staff. Instead, subscription-based digital assets are primarily managed by an agreement with the publisher to use third-party preservation services (such as Portico and LOCKSS).

The IJMSS will also continue its participation in Portico, LOCKSS, and HathiTrust, in support of third-party resource archiving arrangements that are not owned by the journal. The value of participation in these and other similar services will be evaluated periodically.

Resources created by or for, and owned by the journal:

These resources are managed comprehensively using the life cycle model. All IJMSS resource content and associated metadata are expected to be developed in accordance with current standards and best practices and stored in a long-term repository within the journal infrastructure or based on a repository system. in consortia (like HathiTrust).

Rejection rate [upload]

The current rejection rate for the journal is 51%.

DOI [upload]

The journal provides a DOI identifier for each published article.

About the Journal