News release - Putting the patient first

[<Charlotte.Webber@biomedcentral.com>]

12 May 2008

Putting the patient first: Cases Journal holds the promise of 
better care

Patients and doctors are increasingly using the internet to learn 
more about illnesses. Now, a new venture from BioMed Central 
allows them to contribute directly to advancing medical 
understanding of their disease, by sharing their experiences 
online.

Cases Journal, an online open access journal, publishes case 
reports across all medical specialties. It aims to publish every 
well-reported description of a patient's case. Traditional 
medical journals have published only the most original or 
striking case reports, but Cases Journal will make every patient 
count. We hope to publish thousands of cases each year.

Doctors and patients are encouraged to write case reports 
together, where each report can include a 'Patient's perspective' 
where the patients themselves describe their symptoms, tests, and 
treatments in their own words. This will help other patients with 
similar problems, but will also provide physicians with an 
unprecedented level of detail on each clinical condition.

All case reports published in Cases Journal (and its sister 
publication, Journal of Medical Case Reports, edited by Professor 
Michael Kidd) will be added into a database that allows 
physicians to search for cases similar to those they see in their 
practice. The database can be searched for reports of patients 
from a similar demographic, experiencing similar symptoms or 
taking the same medication. Users therefore, can benefit from the 
experience of thousands of doctors and patients worldwide to help 
inform their treatment decisions. The database will also help to 
identify adverse drug reaction as early as possible - by 
searching for case reports related to a particular drug, 
clinicians will have an unparallelled level of information on new 
treatments.

Richard Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Cases Journal (best known for 
his previous role as Editor of the BMJ), said of the new journal 
"Health care is in some ways nothing more than an accumulation of 
case reports just as a population is a collection of people. And 
just as every person is important and different so is every case. 
In Cases Journal, everybody who sees a patient, and everybody who 
is a patient can contribute and I urge you to do so".

Anyone wishing to contribute to Cases Journal can do so at
http://casesjournal.com

-ENDS-


Media Contact
Matt McKay
Head of Public Relations, BioMed Central

Tel:  +44 (0) 20 7079 4845
Mobile: +44 (0) 7825 257 423
Email: matthew.mckay@biomedcentral.com

Notes to Editors:

Richard Smith has recorded a short video interview about the 
significance of the journal. This is available upon request 
(matthew.mckay@biomedcentral.com)

Richard is also available for interviews on Monday and Tuesday. 
Please contact Matt McKay on the details above to organise.

Richard Smith's editorials are available online:
Why do we need Cases Journal?
http://www.casesjournal.com/imedia/1147838573198264_article.pdf
The policies of Cases Journal:
http://www.casesjournal.com/imedia/1558271323198277_article.pdf
Beijing cough: a case report:
http://www.casesjournal.com/imedia/1132628078199341_article.pdf

Cases Journal (ISSN 1757-1626) publishes case reports from any 
area of medicine. The journal will consider any report that is 
understandable, ethical, authentic and includes all information 
essential to its interpretation.

All case reports published in the journal will eventually be 
aggregated into a database, which will allow users to search for 
case reports by disease, drug, patient demographics and more, to 
find cases of most relevance to their clinical practice or 
research interests.

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an independent 
online publishing house committed to providing immediate access 
without charge to the peer-reviewed biological and medical 
research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that 
open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient 
communication of science.