Yesterday, Prof. Najeeb Al Khaja, Secretary General of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences, inaugurated the electronic medical publishing workshop, at Rashid Hospital's library building in Dubai.

 

The workshop was attended by 20 doctors, editors-in chief of many medical journals, specialists in electronic publishing software as well as the editorial staff of the award's Journal of Medical Sciences (JMS). 

 

The workshop has aimed at developing JMS, the only electronic and printed medical journal in UAE, to be reached into the ranks of highly-standard international journals, in order to receive the international accreditation.  

 

While opening the workshop, Prof. Najeeb Al Khaja, Secretary General of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences, said that the main objective of the award is to support scientific research in all medical specialties in order to promote health care sectors locally and internationally. 

 

"Issuing the award's Journal of Medical Sciences is an important ring in a series of efforts made by the award to support scientific research", he said. "The award began these efforts by establishing the Center for Supporting Medical Research in 2001, which has supported 60 scientific research papers since its establishment till now", he added. "In 2006 the award established the Journal of Medical Sciences (JMS) to publish such research papers to be available for the biggest possible number of workers in health sectors", Prof. Al Khaja said. 

 

Also, one of SHAMS's awards is Hamdan Award for Original Research Paper published in JMS. In the 6TH term of the Award 2009-2010, two papers won the award and the researchers received the award in a big ceremony held last December at Dubai World Trade Center.

 

The first research paper is entitled "genetic polymorphisms, protein expression and complications to radiotherapy in Saudi Cancer patients" by King Faisal Specialist Hospital's research center, Riyadh, KSA. 

 

The second research is entitled "the NF-KB Inhibitor IKB, negates colon cell migration, invasion, proliferation and tumor growth" by a group of researchers from Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Therapy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, in collaboration with a group of researchers from France. 

 

Prof. Al Khaja said that despite the great success made by JMS in attracting local, Arab and international medical research papers, contents and appearance still have to be developed according to the international standards in order to obtain the International Accreditation and to be available for the largest possible number of physicians in all countries of the world. 

 

Mrs. Pippa Smart Research Communication and Publishing Consultant, UK, was the workshop's lecturer. She spoke about the importance of publishing electronic medical specialized periodicals. She said that during the past few decades, numbers of electronic medical journals have increased, and contributed to save researchers' time and efforts. "Electronic journals provide more ??interaction between the editorial staff and researchers, by commenting on published articles", she said. She noted that electronic publishing makes it easier and faster to receive, review and publish research papers. These quantitative and qualitative changes have contributed to archive medical research papers and organize them in a database to be easy reviewed. 

 

She added that a series of recommendations have been issued during the workshop, including JMS's staff training on the world standards of editing medical journals through holding more conferences and workshops. 

Also, the recommendations include the importance of strengthening means of communication between JMS and local and international medical colleges in order to encourage young researchers on conducting further scientific research papers and publishing them.