James Maskalyk [University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Médecins San Frontières, Abyei, Sudan] wrote an editorial, “Why Open Medicine?” for the first issue. Here is just a bit of it.
"Medical knowledge should be public and free from undeclared influence. When possible, it should be free for those who apply it. Since people's lives depend on it, that knowledge must be filtered several times before it is ready to use. Studies need to be peer reviewed, to have their statistics analyzed, their content edited, then copy edited, then published quickly for as wide an audience as possible. The prospect of having a high-quality source of information that held true to these principles but was also free and globally accessible was impossible to imagine 20 years ago. Paper and postage are simply too expensive. The landscape is different today. An ideal medical journal — a truly open one—is not only within our sight, it is within our reach.
“Open Medicine is a new general medical journal. It will be paperless and available without charge or any other barrier to access online. We will publish peer-reviewed science and analysis as well as clinical articles. We will provide a forum for informed and inclusive debates on medicine and its application. Open Medicine will be independent of any commercial publisher or association ownership.
“Open Medicine, although launched in Canada, is an international endeavour. Its strength will be a connected global community of interested, committed health workers. Like the country that birthed it, it will remain open, inclusive, and independent but its eyes, like those of its readers, will be on the world. We hope that you share our excitement about the future and being part of it."
URL: http://www.openmedicine.ca/
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