Journal of Allama Iqbal Medical College

1. About the Journal

JAIMC is a peer-reviewed, open-access biomedical journal published by Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore. It publishes original research, reviews, case reports, and educational and policy articles that advance clinical practice, public health, medical education and biomedical science, with particular interest in work relevant to Pakistan and other low- and middle-income settings.

Scope: all clinical specialties, basic medical sciences, community medicine and public health, medical education, health policy and systems, medical ethics, and allied health sciences.

2. International Standards Followed

• ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
• COPE Core Practices, Code of Conduct, and flowcharts for handling ethical concerns.
• Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan guidelines on research conduct and plagiarism.
• WAME recommendations on authorship, peer review, and the use of generative AI.
• Declaration of Helsinki (current version) and CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines for human research.
• EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines.
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing and Think. Check. Submit.

3. Article Types

*Excluding abstract, references, tables and legends. Up to three tables and two figures are included in the publication fee; additional items are charged.

Protocol papers, quality improvement studies and qualitative studies are considered under Original Article, provided the relevant reporting guideline is followed.

4. Authorship and Contributorship

4.1 Authorship criteria

JAIMC recognizes authorship only when all four ICMJE criteria are met:

1. Substantial contribution to conception/design or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data.
2. Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work and to ensure questions about accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Ghost, guest and gift authorship are unethical. Where identified, the journal may remove the authors concerned through correction/erratum and may notify their institution or ethics committee.

4.2 Statement of contribution

Every submission must include the Author’s Undertaking and Contribution Form describing each author’s individual contribution. Authors are encouraged to use the CRediT taxonomy. Each author must provide full name, affiliation, valid institutional email and ORCID iD; ORCID is mandatory for the corresponding author.

4.3 Corresponding author

• Available throughout submission, peer review and publication.
• JAIMC communicates with the designated corresponding author.
• A working email address checked regularly is required.

4.4 Changes in authorship

The author list at initial submission is treated as final. Any addition, deletion or reordering requires a request to the Editor-in-Chief with valid reasons and written agreement of all authors, including the person affected. Post-publication changes are made through a published correction.

4.5 Authors who die before publication

The journal must be notified. A death dagger (†) is placed after the author’s name and the fact/date of death given in a footnote.

4.6 Acknowledgements

Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be named in Acknowledgments with permission. Examples include funders, supervisors not actively involved, manuscript reviewers/proofreaders, technical/language editors, laboratory helpers and statisticians.

5. Research Ethics

5.1 Ethical approval

• Every manuscript must have institutional ethical review approval; state committee name, approval number and date in Methods and confirm compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
• Case reports require a departmental letter confirming informed consent.
• If approval was not required, submit an explanation countersigned by the head of department.
• Retrospective approval is not acceptable for prospective studies.
• Animal studies require institutional animal ethics approval and should follow ARRIVE 2.0.

5.2 Informed consent and privacy

• Written informed consent is required unless waived by the ethics committee.
• Remove identifying details unless essential and covered by explicit written consent; concealing the eyes alone is not adequate anonymization.

5.3 Clinical trials and systematic reviews

• Randomized trials must be prospectively registered before first participant enrolment in a WHO ICTRP-approved registry.
• State the registration number at the end of the abstract.
• Follow CONSORT for trials and PRISMA/MOOSE for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
• Systematic review registration (e.g., PROSPERO) is encouraged.

6. Publication Ethics and Integrity

6.1 Originality and reproduced material

• The manuscript must be original, not under consideration elsewhere, and not published in whole or substantial part.
• Prior presentation, thesis origin and preprint posting must be declared in the cover letter.
• Authors must secure permissions for reproduced material before submission.

6.2 Plagiarism policy

• Includes copying without attribution, self-plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism and salami slicing.
• All authors share responsibility for intellectual integrity.
• Every manuscript is checked with Turnitin before peer review.
• A similarity index above 19% leads to return for correction.
• The journal may request related data, protocols or earlier versions.

6.3 Scientific misconduct

Misconduct includes fabrication/falsification, plagiarism, ghost/guest authorship, denial of due credit, duplicate publication, data manipulation, dubious statistical analysis, false allegations and failure to report known misconduct.

7. Use of Artificial Intelligence

• AI tools, including large language models, cannot be listed as authors.
• Authors must disclose generative AI use for writing, editing, translation, data analysis or image generation, stating tool, version and purpose in Methods or Acknowledgments.
• Authors remain fully responsible for all content and must verify references against original sources.
• Fabricated or AI-generated citations are treated as misconduct.
• AI-generated images are not acceptable unless they are the subject of the research.
• Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts into public AI tools.

8. Conflict of Interest, Funding and Data Availability

8.1 Conflict of interest

All authors must declare competing interests, including grants, honoraria, promotions, memberships and personal/professional relationships that may influence the work. Use the ICMJE Disclosure Form or equivalent. If there is none, state “none to declare.”

8.2 Research funding

Disclose all grants and funding in the submission and manuscript, including the funder’s role. If there was no external funding, state this explicitly.

8.3 Data availability

Include a data availability statement. Depositing de-identified datasets in trusted repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare or Dryad is encouraged. Participant privacy must be protected. Report sex and gender following SAGER guidelines.

9. Reporting Guidelines

Follow the guideline appropriate to the study design and upload the completed checklist with page numbers.

10. Preparing Your Manuscript

10.1 General formatting

• Clear, concise English; use British or American spelling consistently.
• Microsoft Word (.doc/.docx), A4, 12-point Times New Roman or Arial, 1.5 spacing, 2.5 cm margins.
• Continuous line and page numbers.
• No text boxes, tracked changes or embedded comments.
• Define abbreviations at first use; avoid them in titles.
• Use SI units and generic (INN) drug names.
• Report percentages with numerator/denominator and p-values to three decimals.

10.2 Anonymized main file and title page

For double-blind review, the main manuscript must not contain author names, affiliations, acknowledgments or identifying metadata. Upload a separate title page containing full title (maximum 20 words), running title (maximum 50 characters), article type, all author details and ORCID iDs, corresponding author contact details, declarations, counts and prior presentation/preprint information.

10.3 Abstract and keywords

Original articles, reviews and brief reports require a structured abstract with Background and Objective, Methods, Results and Conclusion. Case reports and narrative reviews use an unstructured abstract. Abstracts must be self-contained and reference-free. Provide 3–6 MeSH keywords.

10.4 Original articles (IMRaD)

Introduction: state the problem, evidence, gap and objective/hypothesis.

Methods: give study design, setting, dates, eligibility, sampling, sample size, variables, operational definitions, outcomes, interventions/randomization/blinding where relevant, statistical methods, ethics and consent.

Results: report findings logically, include effect sizes and 95% CIs with p-values, and report all prespecified outcomes.

Discussion: begin with principal findings, compare with literature, discuss implications, include a mandatory Limitations paragraph and avoid causal claims from associative designs.

Conclusion: restrict claims to what the data support.

Declarations: acknowledgments, funding, conflict of interest, ethics, consent, data availability, contribution and AI-use statement.

10.5 Case reports (CARE)

Use Abstract, Introduction, Case Presentation, Discussion with literature review, Learning Points and patient-consent statement. The report should provide a rare presentation, new insight, adverse effect or clear educational message.

10.6 Tables and figures

• Editable Word tables, consecutively numbered, title above, footnotes below.
• Figures as separate TIFF/JPEG files at minimum 300 dpi; vector format for line art.
• Legends in manuscript; micrographs require scale bars and staining details.
• No image manipulation beyond uniform brightness/contrast/colour adjustments.
• Written permission required for reproduced material.

10.7 References

• Vancouver (ICMJE/NLM) style; numbered in order of first citation.
• List up to six authors, then first six followed by “et al.”
• Use NLM journal abbreviations and DOI where available.
• Cite verifiable peer-reviewed sources and avoid retracted or predatory-journal work except when discussing retraction.
• At least 60% of references should be from the last five years, except seminal works.

11. Submission Process

All manuscripts must be submitted online through JAIMC OJS at jms.jaimc.org. Manuscripts sent by email are not considered.

1. Register or log in and complete your profile, including ORCID.
2. Start a new submission and choose the correct article type.
3. Accept submission requirements, copyright and privacy statements.
4. Enter metadata and upload required files.
5. Confirm submission and record the submission ID.

11.1 Required files

• Cover letter with novelty, originality confirmation, prior presentation/preprint, and three suggested reviewers with institutional emails and no conflict.
• Title page and anonymized main manuscript.
• Tables and figures as separate files.
• Author’s Undertaking and Contribution Form signed by all authors.
• Signed CC BY 4.0 copyright statement.
• Ethics approval letter or countersigned exemption statement.
• Reporting-guideline checklist, ICMJE disclosure forms, and trial registration where relevant.
• Permission letters for reproduced material.
• Proof of processing-fee payment.

11.2 Pre-submission checklist

• ☐ Correct article type, structure and word limits
• ☐ Structured abstract and 3–6 MeSH keywords
• ☐ Main file anonymized; title page uploaded separately
• ☐ Ethics, consent, registration, funding, COI and data availability included
• ☐ Reporting checklist uploaded
• ☐ Authors verified with ORCID and signed forms
• ☐ Vancouver references verified with DOIs
• ☐ Permissions obtained for third-party material
• ☐ Similarity index ≤19%

12. Peer Review Policy

JAIMC follows double-blind peer review.

1. Initial assessment: completeness, scope, ethics documentation and Turnitin report.
2. Review: one internal reviewer, one external reviewer and a statistical reviewer.
3. Revision: revised manuscript plus point-by-point response.
4. Rejection by a reviewer: manuscript may be sent to another reviewer with initial comments.
5. Decision: final acceptance/rejection rests with the editors.
6. Production: accepted articles are copyedited, typeset, proofed and published online with DOI; proofs should be returned within 72 hours.

Reviewers follow COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Editors with conflicts, including editors from the authors’ own department, do not handle the manuscript.

13. Withdrawal of Manuscripts and Appeals

13.1 Withdrawal

• A written withdrawal statement signed by all authors is required.
• The manuscript remains active until the editorial board formally approves withdrawal in writing.
• Submitting elsewhere while under JAIMC consideration, or before approved withdrawal, may result in blacklisting.

13.2 Appeal against rejection

• Authors may submit a detailed appeal.
• The appeal is decided by in-house editorial-board review.
• If granted, the revised manuscript is submitted anew and review starts afresh.

14. Open Access and Copyright

• JAIMC is fully open access.
• Final articles are freely available immediately without subscription, fee or registration.
• Articles are licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Authors retain copyright and sign the copyright statement at submission.
• Articles are assigned Crossref DOIs.

Supplement issues

JAIMC may publish supplements for meetings, conference abstracts or specific topics at an organization’s request. The requesting organization bears the agreed costs.

15. Publication Charges

*Applies if all authors are undergraduate students or postgraduate residents, respectively.

• Up to three tables and two figures/photographs are included in the publication fee.
• Each additional table/figure may incur PKR 500.
• Two journal copies are provided to the corresponding author; each additional copy costs PKR 2,000.

16. Complaints

Any stakeholder may contact the editorial office to register a complaint. Complaints are handled in accordance with COPE guidance.

17. Post-Publication Review and Retraction Pathway

JAIMC treats publication as a continuing responsibility. Concerns are assessed on evidence, with correction for minor error, expression of concern while inquiry continues, and retraction where findings are unreliable. Notices state the reason, identify the issuer and permanently link to the article, which remains accessible and clearly marked. Decisions rest independently with the Editor-in-Chief under COPE guidance.

18. Advertisement Policy

JAIMC does not accept advertisements of any kind, in print or online.

19. Contact

Editorial Office, Journal of Allama Iqbal Medical College
Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan
Phone: +92 42 99231453
Website: jaimc.org
Submission portal: jms.jaimc.org
Email: Editorial@jaimc.org