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AIMS AND SCOPE

          Medicus is an international peer reviewed journal published in English. We welcome all contributions that enhance or illuminate medical sciences. Medicus covers all fields of medicine and related research, especially in developing countries, serving thus as their bridge to the mainstream science.
Medicus is devoted to the Guidelines on Good Publication Practice as established by Committee on Publication Ethics-COPE (posted at http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/) (Click on for pdf version).  Articles should be written according to the „Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals“ developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Consult a current version, which has been published in several journals (for example: Ann Intern Med 1997;126:36-47) and posted at http://www.icmje.org/ (Serbian translation taken from the Serbian Archive, special issue 1999;127:88).
Medicus supports the registration of trials as an important initiative to improve the reporting of clinical studies.
Medicus has adopted the statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which requires, as a condition of consideration for publication of clinical trials, registration in a public trials registry (Click on for pdf version). Trial registers that currently meet all of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and World Health Organization (WHO) requirements can be found at http://www.icmje.org/faq.pdf. Please refer to the CONSORT statement website at http://www.consort-statement.org/ for more information.

EDITORIAL POLICY

          The journal publishes editorials, original articles, clinically relevant studies, reviews, case reports, letters to the editor, articles from up-to-date literature, book reviews and news. All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by at least two reviewers and, when necessary, a statistician. Authors will be notified of acceptance, rejection, or need for revision within 4 weeks of submission, at the late.

PREVIOUS PUBLICATION

          Original manuscripts will be accepted with the understanding that they are solely contributed to Medicus. The papers will be not accepted if they contain the material that has already been published or has been submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere, except of preliminary reports, such as an abstract, poster or press report presented at professional or scientific meetings and not exceeding 400 words. Any previous publication in such form must be disclosed in a footnote. English version of papers previously published in some other language will be taken into consideration if they are of interest to a wider community. For advice on previous or simultaneous publication, contact the Editorial Office.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST (Click on for detailed description)

          All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationship with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence their work, in covering letter, within the manuscript, and on the copyright transfer agreement form. If there are no financial disclosures from any authors, this should be stated as well. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the text. For authors: please, download the copyright transfer agreement form which includes conflict of interest statement.

PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS AND ANIMALS IN RESEARCH (Click on for detailed description)

          When reporting experiments on human subjects, indicate whether the procedures applied were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) or with the Helsinki Declaration (1964, amend­ed in 1975, 1983, 1989, 1996, and revised in 2000) of the World Medical Association (Click on for pdf version).  Do not use patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers, especially in any illustrative material. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or the National Research Council’s guide or any national law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed (Click on for pdf version). For authors: please, download the copyright transfer agreement form which includes statement of informed consent and statement of human and animal rights.

COVERING LETTER

          Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter, which should include the following information.

• A full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically, and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper, to help the editor decide how to handle the matter.
• Conflict of Interest Statement of financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest, if that information is not included in the manuscript itself or in an authors’ form
• A Statement of Informed Consent that subjects gave informed consent to the work.
• A Statement of Human and Animal Rights that the work has been approved by the appropriate ethical committees related to the institution(s) in which it was performed
• A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated later in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work, if that information is not provided in another form; and
• The name, address, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, if that information is not included on the manuscript itself.

          An example of the covering letter: “Those signed claim that the manuscript has not been published elsewhere as a whole, or partly. We agree with the content of the manuscript and approve its publication in Medicus. Researching has been approved by the institutional Ethics Committee. All subjects included in research gave informed consent to the work. There are no financial problems that might lead to a conflict of interest.

          The covering letter must be signed by the corresponding author and all coauthors. All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

PROOFS

          All manuscripts will be carefully revised by the publisher desk editor. Only in case of extensive corrections will the manuscript be returned to the authors for final approval. In order to speed up publication, no proof will be sent to the authors, but will be read and approved by the editor and the desk editor.

OFFPRINTS AND REPRINTS

          The correspondence authors of all types of articles and meta-analysis, except letters, news and book reviews, will receive 10 offprints free of charge. Additional offprints are to be paid and should be ordered. A photocopy of any article may be obtained at the price of 5 EUR. All requests for reprints should be addressed to: medicus@medf.kg.ac.yu

COPYRIGHT.

          All the material published in the Medicus represents the opinions of the authors and does not reflect the opinions of the Medical Faculty University of Kragujevac, the editors, or the institutions with which the authors are affiliated. Autors submiting manuscripts to the Medicus do so with the understanding that if their manuscript is accepted, the copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the publisher (Medical Faculty University of Kragujevac), and that the corsponding author and all coauthors will be required to sign and submit a copyright transfer agreement form at the time of submition of the revised manuscript.
No article will be published without a copyright transfer agreement signed by all the listed authors. Failure to submit this form at the time the manuscript is submitted can cause delays in peer review and publication