Skills Productivity Clinical Medicine Journal Routing Workflow

Clinical Medicine Journal Routing Workflow

v20260724
en-clinmed-journal-workflow
A comprehensive workflow guide for routing clinical medicine manuscripts. It classifies studies by specialty, study design (RCT, observational, review), and evidence strength, helping authors select the optimal journal venue (e.g., JAMA, Lancet) for submission and re-framing. It emphasizes matching the manuscript to specialized society guidelines and evidence hierarchy.
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Overview

Clinical-medicine journal workflow (en-clinmed-journal-workflow)

Purpose

This is the routing skill for the specialty-clinical bundle. It does not replace a single-journal profile; it first classifies the study by specialty, study design, and evidence strength, then routes into the matching per-journal skill for fit and re-framing. It is a sibling to en-natsci-journal-workflow (which holds the general big-four and broad-specialty clinical flagships). These skills are venue-fit aids only — not clinical, diagnostic, or regulatory advice.

Ask four things first

  1. Specialty: internal/general medicine, oncology, cardiology, neurology, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, respiratory/critical care, nephrology, endocrinology/diabetes, hepatology/GI, allergy/immunology, rheumatology, stroke, radiology, anesthesiology, obstetrics/gynecology, or urology?
  2. Study design: randomized controlled trial, prospective cohort / observational study, diagnostic-accuracy study, systematic review / meta-analysis, guideline / consensus, mechanistic/translational study, or narrative/invited review?
  3. Evidence strength & impact: practice-changing definitive trial, an important but not definitive result, a hypothesis-generating or exploratory finding, or a synthesis?
  4. Audience: the whole specialty (a society/JAMA-Network/Lancet specialty flagship), a sub-specialty community, or a general-medicine audience (route up to the big-four in the natural-science bundle)?

Quick routing

Manuscript signature Prefer skill
General internal-medicine trial / comparative effectiveness jama-internal-medicine
Oncology clinical trial / practice-changing jama-oncology / annals-of-oncology
Authoritative oncology review nature-reviews-clinical-oncology
Cardiology specialty study jama-cardiology
Neurology clinical study jama-neurology
Neuroscience-to-clinical brain disorders, mechanism + clinical brain
Cerebrovascular / stroke stroke
Pediatrics jama-pediatrics
Psychiatry / mental-health (clinical or population) jama-psychiatry / the-lancet-psychiatry
Surgery / perioperative outcomes jama-surgery
Respiratory / pulmonary / critical-care medicine the-lancet-respiratory-medicine / american-journal-of-respiratory-and-critical-care-medicine
Intensive / critical care critical-care-medicine
Diabetes / endocrinology (clinical or population) the-lancet-diabetes-and-endocrinology / journal-of-clinical-endocrinology-and-metabolism / diabetologia
Nephrology / kidney disease journal-of-the-american-society-of-nephrology / kidney-international
Liver disease / hepatology journal-of-hepatology / hepatology
Gastroenterology (clinical) american-journal-of-gastroenterology
Allergy / clinical immunology journal-of-allergy-and-clinical-immunology
Rheumatology / autoimmune arthritis-and-rheumatology
Public-health / population-health intervention the-lancet-public-health
Diagnostic imaging / imaging AI radiology
Anesthesiology / perioperative medicine anesthesiology
Obstetrics / gynecology american-journal-of-obstetrics-and-gynecology
Urology european-urology

Sibling-journal disambiguation

Confusable targets Decision rule
A JAMA Network specialty title vs the general big-four (NEJM/JAMA/Lancet/BMJ in the natural-science bundle) A practice-changing, broadly significant trial may belong at the general venue; a strong specialty-relevant result routes to the JAMA Network / Lancet specialty title.
jama-oncology vs annals-of-oncology Route by audience and society fit (JAMA Network vs ESMO) and re-check current scopes; both take high-quality oncology clinical research.
journal-of-the-american-society-of-nephrology vs kidney-international Both are top nephrology venues (ASN vs ISN); route by society fit and emphasis and re-check current scopes.
journal-of-hepatology vs hepatology EASL vs AASLD flagships; route by society fit and audience and re-check current scopes.
the-lancet-psychiatry vs jama-psychiatry Both are top psychiatry venues; route by family fit (Lancet vs JAMA Network) and the framing/audience.
Specialty journal vs the-lancet-public-health A population-health/policy intervention routes to public health; a disease-specific clinical result routes to the specialty journal.

Decision rules

  • Match the reporting guideline before submitting. RCT → CONSORT + prospective trial registration (number in the manuscript); systematic review → PRISMA; observational → STROBE; diagnostic accuracy → STARD. These are prerequisites, not nice-to-haves, at these venues.
  • Evidence hierarchy sets the venue. A definitive randomized trial outranks an observational study, which outranks a single-center case series; route the design to the venue that expects that level of evidence.
  • Specialty fit beats prestige. A strong nephrology or rheumatology result is often better served by the society specialty flagship than by a general journal that will desk-reject for limited general interest.
  • Review vs primary. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology and similar are largely invited/commissioned — propose, do not submit unsolicited primary data.
  • Ethics, consent, and disclosures (IRB approval, informed consent, ICMJE COI and authorship, data sharing) are gating items at every clinical venue.
  • Always enter the single-journal skill's official-submission checklist before submitting; never rely on a stale template.

Output format

[Top journal skill] <skill-name>
[Alt 1] <skill-name> (reason)
[Alt 2] <skill-name> (reason)
[Do not submit to] <journal> (one-line mismatch reason)
[Study design / reporting guideline] <RCT-CONSORT / cohort-STROBE / review-PRISMA / diagnostic-STARD>
[Biggest current gap] evidence-strength / specialty-fit / registration / reporting-checklist / ethics / official requirements
[Next step] invoke <skill-name> for single-venue fit and re-framing
Info
Category Productivity
Name en-clinmed-journal-workflow
Version v20260724
Size 6.49KB
Updated At 2026-07-28
Language