About

Aims and scope

BMC Medical Education is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in relation to the education and training of healthcare professionals. The journal welcomes studies on students and professionals across all levels of education; education delivery aspects; and other education-related topics.

BMC Medical Education does not make editorial decisions on the basis of the interest of a study or its likely impact. Studies must be scientifically valid; for research articles this includes a scientifically sound research question, the use of suitable methods and analysis, and following community-agreed standards relevant to the research field. Specific criteria for other article types can be found in the submission guidelines.

Common topics considered by the journal include research related to:

Learners:

Undergraduate students, postgraduate students, residents, medical specialties, formal nursing education, medical professionals continuing education, and students of other health-related professions (if relevant to medical education)
Medical staff and teaching faculty development

Education delivery:

Curriculum development, evaluation, implementation, and accreditation
Assessment of competence and performance
Evidence-informed education
Teaching strategies and effectiveness, including innovative teaching methods, technology-based teaching and learning methods, e-learning, medical simulation, and use of AI in medical education

Education topics, such as:

Clinical competency skills, such as clinical reasoning
Professionalism
Ethics of medical practice and academic integrity
Soft skills education, including consultation and communication skills
Career choice and career planning
Recruitment and selection into training programmes
Interprofessional collaboration and interdisciplinary teamwork
Well-being of learners, trainees, and health care professionals, stress and burnout management, support strategies
Medical and health education reforms and policies

Additionally, the journal considers:

Research on education and educational methods specific to medical education. Studies relevant to other educational communities which could be applied beyond the medical profession, will be considered only if there is a clear implication for the medical field
Studies with regional relevance will be considered only if the findings contribute to the knowledge of the international audience
Other studies a clear research component and distinctive insights to the educational community
Studies on AI tools are welcome as long as there is a clear implication for medical education, however AI- and LLM-specific research using medical education as evaluation models will not be considered.

Open access

All articles published by BMC Medical Education are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

As authors of articles published in BMC Medical Education you are the copyright holders of your article and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate your article, according to the BMC license agreement.

For those of you who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BMC can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article processing charges (APC)

Authors who publish open access in BMC Medical Education are required to pay an article processing charge (APC). The APC price will be determined from the date on which the article is accepted for publication.

The current APC, subject to VAT or local taxes where applicable, is: £2290.00/$2890.00/€2490.00*

*This journal is part of Springer Nature’s country-tiered APC pricing pilot. Find out more about the APC applicable to your country.

Visit our open access support portal and our Journal Pricing FAQs for further information.

Open access funding

Visit Springer Nature’s open access funding & support services for information about research funders and institutions that provide funding for APCs.

Springer Nature offers agreements that enable institutions to cover open access publishing costs. Learn more about our open access agreements to check your eligibility and discover whether this journal is included.

Requests for APC waivers and discounts from authors will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and may be granted in cases of financial need (see our open access policies for journals for more information). All applications for discretionary APC waivers and discounts should be made at the point of manuscript submission; requests made during the review process or after acceptance are unable to be considered.

Indexing services

All articles published in BMC Medical Education are included in:

CABI
CAS
Cinahl
Citebase
Current contents
DOAJ
Embase
EmCare
Global Health
MEDLINE
OAIster
PubMed
PubMed Central
Science Citation Index Expanded
SCImago
Scopus
Social Sciences Citation Index
SOCOLAR
Zetoc

The full text of all articles is deposited in digital archives around the world to guarantee long-term digital preservation. You can also access all articles published by BioMed Central on SpringerLink.

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in their journal. You can read more about the peer-review process here.

In cases where the journal is unable to find sufficient peer reviewers, the services of a publishing partner, American Journal Experts (AJE), may be used to identify suitable reviewers and provide reports to avoid further delays for authors. Reviewers recruited by AJE are paid a small honorarium for completing the review within a specified timeframe. Honoraria are paid regardless of the reviewer recommendation.

In cases where reports have been obtained by AJE, the peer review reports will be unsigned unless the reviewer opts in to sign the report.

BMC Medical Education operates a transparent peer-review system, where, if the article is published, the reviewer reports are published online alongside the article under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 but the reviewer is not named.

The benefit of transparent peer review is that it increases transparency. In addition, published reports can serve an educational purpose in helping facilitate training and research into peer review.

Manuscripts submitted to BMC Medical Education are assessed by our editors and/or peer reviewers. Editor(s) are expected to obtain a minimum of two peer reviewers for manuscripts reporting primary research or secondary analysis of primary research. It is recognized that in some exceptional circumstances, particularly in niche and emerging fields, it may not be possible to obtain two independent peer reviewers. In such cases, Editor(s) may wish to make a decision to publish based on one peer review report. When making a decision based on one report, Editor(s) are expected to only do so if the peer review report meets the standards set out in the Springer Nature Code of Conduct (section Peer-Review). Overall editorial responsibility for the journal is with the Editor. Senior Editorial Board Members of BMC Medical Education handle manuscripts in a broad range of topics within their general areas of expertise, in addition to advising on editorial board and journal development. The Senior Editorial Board is selected based on exceptional contributions to the journal. The Editorial Board Members manage the peer review process and make final decisions on whether papers should be accepted.

BMC Medical Education is part of the BMC series which publishes subject-specific journals focused on the needs of individual research communities across all areas of biology and medicine. We do not make editorial decisions on the basis of the interest of a study or its likely impact. Studies must be scientifically valid; for research articles this includes a scientifically sound research question, the use of suitable methods and analysis, and following community-agreed standards relevant to the research field.

Specific criteria for other article types can be found in the submission guidelines.

BMC series - open, inclusive and trusted.

Collections and Special issues

All articles submitted to Collections and Special issues are peer reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. The Editors declare no competing interests with the submissions which they have handled through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor who has no competing interests.

Editorial policies

All manuscripts submitted to BMC Medical Education should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should follow the procedure outlined in the BMC Editorial Policies.

Citing articles in BMC Medical Education

Articles in BMC Medical Education should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Article citations follow this format:

Authors: Title. BMC Med Educ [year], [volume number]:[article number].

e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. BMC Med Educ 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Benefits of publishing with BMC

High visibility

BMC Medical Education's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience.

Speed of publication

BMC Medical Education offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF.

Flexibility

Online publication in BMC Medical Education gives you the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in BMC Medical Education are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be highlighted on BMC Medical Education’s pages and on the BMC homepage.

In addition, articles published in BMC Medical Education may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in BMC Medical Education. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BMC is available here.

Copyright

As an author of an article published in BMC Medical Education you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work (for further details, see the BMC license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BMC, please click here.