Online Medical Journal to Publish in Real Time.

Medscape General Medicine, a new Web-only, peer-reviewed research publication, could shake up the staid process of disclosing medical breakthroughs. Breakthroughs in medical research are often announced in the pages of the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature and other scientific journals. Now a Web health-care company is putting the rigor of a peer-reviewed publication on Internet time by launching the first online-only general medical journal. The debut of Medscape General Medicine on Medscape, a Web site for physicians, could mark another turning point in the medical community_s use of the Internet. The publication process, which involves submitting papers for review by selected experts, typically takes several months. Medscape aims to shake up the status quo by offering a continuous publication schedule that will expedite peer review. Medscape General Medicine, known as MedGenMed, will also be free to the 180,000 physicians and nearly 1 million consumers registered on the Medscape site. Annual subscriptions to the top-tier print medical journals run between $129 and $159. To compete with such stalwarts as the 187-year-old weekly New England Journal of Medicine, Medscape hired JAMA_s longtime editor, Dr. George Lundberg, to run MedGenMed. According to Lundberg, reviewers will be asked to critique articles in three days. The New England Journal of Medicine gives its reviewers at least two weeks. The new journal_s ambitions have already raised the hackles of competitors who argue that such a fast-track schedule could compromise scientific accuracy. Lundberg emphasizes that MedGenMed authors and reviewers will adhere to the same rigorous guidelines for the publication of medical articles that other journals follow. The Net_s ability to widely disseminate ongoing research challenges the journals_ rule against accepting papers that have been published elsewhere in other forms. In March, for instance, the New England Journal informed its readers that posting audio recordings and slides from a medical meeting on the Net would not violate the rule against prior publication. The New England Journal itself has expedited peer review and published articles on its Web site weeks in advance of print publication when the subject involved an important public-health issue, according to Kassirer.