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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7434 p50
13 January 2007

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Letters

• Pharmacy practice
• Health economics
• Dispensing errors
• Controlled drugs
• Ethics
• Adverse events
• Regulation
• Fitness to practise
• The Society (2)
• Retention fees (5)
• Pharmacy politicians
• The Journal (2)

Letters to the Editor

The Journal

Can the PJ be made more appealing to researchers? (Professor K. A. Wilson and others)

Happy New Year? (S. J. Hadley)

Can the PJ be made more appealing to researchers?

From Professor K. A. Wilson, FRPharmS, and others

Tom Burnham (PJ, 16 December 2006, p736) is correct to point out the utility of Pharm-line for finding the grey literature in which much of pharmacy research appears. However, it is equally important that efforts in the pharmacy publishing world are made to make pharmacy journals both less grey and more appealing to researchers.

We understand that the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice applied in 2006 to the the Institute for Scientific Information in order to obtain an impact factor. There is an argument that The Pharmaceutical Journal, with its higher readership figures, might also be able to revisit its mixture of news and research — perhaps becoming a pharmaceutical BMJ.

If pharmacy practice research is to improve its ability to influence the debate outside the confines of its profession, then it either needs to be published in existing mainstream literature, or we should ensure that the journals we publish in become part of that literature.

Keith A. Wilson
J. F. Marriott
Anthony Cox
School of Life and Health Sciences
Aston University, Birmingham

The Pharmaceutical Journal, as the official journal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, has an obligation to publish Official Notices and the transactions of the Society to keep members fully informed of its activities. This alone militates against The Journal being cited.

Further, although The Journal publishes as much practice research as it can, particularly from authors who wish to communicate with pharmacists and put a higher value on this communication than appearing in a cited journal, the number of original papers we receive and publish is not sufficient to give The Journal an impact factor.

We believe the current mix of news, opinion and research serves the profession well.
— EDITOR

Happy New Year?

From S. J. Hadley, MRPharmS

I write regarding the recent Alliance/Boots advertisement (PJ, 6 January, pA7). I am English but I speak Spanish pretty well. I cannot comment about the other languages used in that advertisement but, regarding the Spanish — well, it is wonderful, is it not, what a good proctologist can do these days!

Stephen Hadley
York

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