The New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med or NEJM) is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is one of the most popular and widely-read peer-reviewed general medical journals in the world. It is also the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.

History

The NEJM was founded by Dr. John Collins Warren in 1812 as a quarterly called The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery. In 1828, it became a weekly, and was renamed The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal; one hundred years later, it took on its present name.

It publishes editorials, papers on original research, widely-cited review articles, correspondences, case reports, and has a special section called "Images in Clinical Medicine".

Authors have included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Hans Zinsser, and Lewis Thomas, along with other prominent physicians. One of its early editors, Jerome V. C. Smith, resigned in 1857 to assume his duties as mayor of the City of Boston.

Influence

The website for the George Polk Awards noted that its 1977 award to the New England Journal of Medicine "provided the first significant mainstream visibility for a publication that would achieve enormous attention and prestige in the ensuing decades"

The journal usually has the highest impact factor of the journals of clinical medicine (including the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet); in 2006, the impact factor was 51, according to Journal Citation Reports, the first research journal to break 50.

Open access policy

NEJM provides delayed free online access to its research articles (it does so six months after publication, and maintains that access dating back to 1993). This delay does not apply to readers from the least developed countries, for whom the content is available at no charge for personal use.
NEJM also has two podcast features, one with interviews of doctors and researchers that are publishing in the journal, and another summarizing the content of each issue. Other offerings include Continuing Medical Education, Videos in Clinical Medicine (showing videos of medical procedures), and the weekly Image Challenge.

Editors

• Walter Prentice Bowers, 1921–1937

• Robert Nason Nye, 1937–1947

• Joseph Garland, 1947–1967

• Franz J. Ingelfinger, 1967–1977

• Arnold S. Relman, 1977–1991

• Jerome P. Kassirer, 1991–1999

• Marcia Angell, 1999–2000

• Jeffrey M. Drazen, 2000-

Other leading medical journals

• Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)

• The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics

• Canadian Medical Association Journal

• Nature Medicine

• The Lancet

• British Medical Journal

• Annals of Internal Medicine

• Annals of Surgery

• Archives of Internal Medicine

• Journal Watch, sibling publication to NEJM

• List of medical journals

See also

• Oscar (cat)