Minnesota Medicine Editorial Leadership & Policies

Minnesota Medicine is the journal of the Minnesota Medical Association, continuously published since 1918.

The magazine is mailed to just under 5,000 physicians who are members or retired members of the Minnesota Medical Association. An email link is sent to medical students and medical residents in Minnesota. The magazine also is viewable online.

Aims & Scope

Minnesota Medicine is intended to serve as a credible forum for presenting information and ideas affecting Minnesota physicians and their practices. The content of articles and the opinions expressed in Minnesota Medicine do not represent the official policy of the Minnesota Medical Association unless this is specified.

Each bimonthly issue contains original research, clinical content, commentaries, and feature articles about physicians and topics of interest to physicians. Each issue also includes a section of information about the activities of the MMA.  

Editorial Leadership

Owner and Publisher
Minnesota Medical Association

Medical Editors

 ​​​​Editor
Greg Breining

Director of Communications
Dan Hauser, APR

Advisory Board
Vedavathi Bellamkonda-Athmara, MD 
Grant Botker, MD
Devon Callahan, MD
Derrick Lewis (medical student)
Charles R. Meyer, MD, (retired)

Editorial Policies

Submissions to Minnesota Medicine must have a Minnesota connection. Generally, this means a Minnesota author, but occasionally it may mean research done in Minnesota by an author from another area.

Minnesota Medicine will consider original research, reviews, case reports, essays, commentaries, photography, and reporting related to medical practice and the lives and work of physicians in Minnesota. Submissions should not have been published elsewhere.

Please send submissions to gbreining@mnmed.org. Receipt of articles should be acknowledged within 10 days. Accepted articles may not be published for several months, depending on the needs and space of the magazine.

Have a question about a submission? Contact Greg Breining, gbreining@mnmed.org.

Guidelines for Submissions

Minnesota Medicine is not indexed on PubMed, which means some of the requirements of JAMA style do not apply. Our goal—for research as well as for other kinds of submissions—is to make articles accessible and interesting to read so that more people will, in fact, read them.

All authors of an article should be involved in the drafting, revision, and intellectual content of the article and be sufficiently familiar with it to defend its findings. Authors are responsible for all statements made in their work, including changes made in editing.

Authors must sign a copyright form that conveys all copyright ownership to the Minnesota Medical Association. This form is emailed to the authors after a manuscript is accepted for publication in Minnesota Medicine.

Manuscripts are edited for clarity and grammar and to conform to Minnesota Medicine style. Authors will receive at least one edited copy of their paper for review before it is sent to press.

Format

Please email articles as Microsoft Word attachments (no PDFs, please) and include references, legends, etc. We prefer tables created in Word, figures made in Microsoft Excel, and photographs that are JPEG files. Photos should be at least 1 MB in size to provide sufficient detail.

Submissions should include:

• A brief cover letter (can be in the form of an email) that identifies the author with whom we should correspond; include email address, mailing address, and phone number.
• Title (which we may change) and the full names of all authors, with their academic degrees and their academic appointments and positions in hospitals or other institutions.
• Articles about clinical and health affairs, including research studies, should include an abstract that highlights the essence of the work.

Style

• No citations in the text and references listed in alphabetical order at the end. Authors are encouraged to pare these down to a small list of references that a reader who wanted more information might access. Think of it as “for more information,” rather than “references.” If a reference is crucial, cite it within the text: “As Smith and Jones noted in an article in the December 2019 issue of JAMA …”
• Avoid medical and healthcare jargon to the best extent possible.
• In editing, we may summarize or even delete some of the more technical details of research articles.
• We use magazine-type headlines, with subheads.
• We may use a generic illustration with the article, as we would for other magazine articles.

Tables

Tables must have a title and be numbered. If the data in the tables have been previously published, appropriate reference should be given in the text, and permission should be obtained from the original publisher before submission to Minnesota Medicine. We prefer tables that are created in Microsoft Word.

Illustrations

Figures should be professionally drawn or computer-generated images or photographs, if possible. We prefer high-resolution photographs (1 MB or larger) in JPEG or TIF format. Each figure should have a number and a legend. Legends should be included in the text of the manuscript with numbers corresponding to the figures. If a patient in a photo is identifiable, a signed release from the subject must accompany the photo. 

Corrections and retractions:

Minnesota Medicine makes every effort to publish a magazine without errors. It is expected that the final version of a manuscript is accurate and complete. Authors are sent PDF page proofs before publication, so they can check the content.

• Occasionally, an error may be discovered after publication that requires the publication of a correction. Corrections will be published in the next issue of the magazine, and the information will be corrected in any digital versions of the article.
• Changes arising from the normal course of new scientific research are not within the scope of this policy and don’t need correction or withdrawal.
• If there is substantial doubt as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article, it is the editor’s responsibility to make sure the matter is appropriately addressed, usually by the authors' sponsoring institution. It is not normally the editor’s responsibility to carry out an investigation or make a determination. The editor should be promptly informed of the decision of the sponsoring institution. A retraction will be printed if it is determined that a fraudulent paper was published.

Advertising Policies

Minnesota Medicine sells advertising space when the inclusion of advertising does not interfere with the mission or objectives of the publication. To maintain the integrity of Minnesota Medicine, advertising cannot influence editorial decisions or editorial content. Decisions to sell advertising are made independently of and with information pertinent to specific editorial content. The publication of an advertisement does not imply MMA endorsement or sponsorship.

Peer Review Process

Clinical and research submissions to Minnesota Medicine are assigned to reviewers with efforts to minimize potential conflicts of interests. Submissions generally are submitted to two to four reviewers, who make an initial recommendation as to whether the article is appropriate for publication in Minnesota Medicine. If that is the case, reviewers then make overall assessments of the submission plus any suggestions for revisions and/or additions.

For authors, the time from receipt of submission to first decision on publication is usually about four weeks. From acceptance to publication may be from 60 to 120 days. Minnesota Medicine’s acceptance rate for original clinical submissions is approximately 75 percent.

Conflict of Interest

Authors submitting manuscripts must alert Minnesota Medicine of any potential conflict of interest and to acknowledge all funding sources supporting the work. The corresponding author must ensure that all authors have been asked to disclose any conflicts of interest.

A conflict of interest includes a financial association or relationship that could influence the objectivity, integrity, or interpretation of a publication. Conflicts of interest include relationships with corporations whose products or services are related to the subject matter of the article. Possible conflicts may also include past or present association as advisor, student, or family relationship.

Disclosing a potential conflict does not necessarily invalidate the research or comments of a reviewer; it gives readers information they can use to independently assess the work. Any potential conflict will be disclosed with the article.

Research Ethics

Submissions to Minnesota Medicine must comply with state and federal regulatory bodies for the inclusion of animal and human research data. All research must have been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework.

Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data must have been performed in accordance with the institution’s Institutional Review Board or similar, and in alignment with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Minnesota Medicine expects the application and promotion of humane, responsible animal care and use in any submitted research or activity. All research involving animals must adhere to the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the authors’ institution and be in compliance with federal and state regulations governing humane care and use of laboratory animals, including the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal Welfare Act.

Informed Consent

Patient identifiers will not be published unless there is written informed consent from the patient, provided to Minnesota Medicine, and the identifiers are necessary for the scientific purpose of the manuscript. Photographs of subjects showing recognizable features must be accompanied by a signed release authorizing publication.