Journal of the American Medical Association

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is a weekly, peer-reviewed, medical journal, published by the American Medical Association. Beginning in July 2011, the editor in chief will be Howard C. Bauchner, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boston University’s School of Medicine, replacing Catherine D. DeAngelis, who has served since 2000. In 1883, the first editor was Nathan Smith Davis (1817–1904).

From 1883–1960, this journal was listed with and without the acronym JAMA. Furthermore, there are French and Spanish language editions of JAMA.

Aims and scope
Established in 1883 by the American Medical Association and published continuously since then, JAMA publishes original research, reviews, commentaries, editorials, essays, medical news, correspondence, and ancillary content (such as abstracts of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report).

The journal covers a variety of medical topics. It includes fundamental research, research for the clinical sciences, and informs physicians of developments in other fields. Issues pertaining to medicine and health care are debated in this journal. Broader topical coverage related to medicine, includes nonclinical aspects of medicine, public health, and issues that are described as political, philosophic, ethical, legal, environmental, economic, historical, and cultural. Another focus of this journal is the integrity of science.

CME
Continuing Education Opportunities for Physicians is an alternate title for this journal. It is also a section of the journal, which provides lists for regional or national levels of continuing medical education (CME), semianually. JAMA has provided this information since 1937. Prior to 1955, the list was produced either quarterly or semiannually. Between 1955 and 1981, the list was available annually, as the number of CME offerings increased from 1,000 (1955) to 8,500 (1981). The AMA website states that webinars are available for CME.

Impact factor and ranking
According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2009 impact factor of 28.899, ranking it 3rd among 133 journals in the category "Medicine, General & Internal".

Policy shift
After a controversial firing of an editor in chief, George D. Lundberg, a process was put in place to ensure editorial freedom. A seven member oversight committee was created to evaluate the editor-in-chief and to help ensure editorial independence. To date, the committee has met at least once a year since its inception. Presently, JAMA states that article content should be attributed to authors, and not the publisher, which is the American Medical Association.

Abstracting and indexing
This journal is indexed in the following databases:


 * Index Medicus
 * MEDLINE
 * PubMed
 * Chemical Abstracts Service - CASSI
 * Thomson Reuters
 * Science Citation Index
 * Current Contents/Clinical Medicine
 * Current Contents/Life Sciences
 * BIOSIS Previews
 * SciSearch