Medical journals arepublications that report medical information to physicians and other
healthprofessionals.
In the past,thesejournals were available only in print.With the development of electronicpublishing,
many medicaljournals now have Web sites on the Internet,and some journals are publishedonly online.A
few medicaljournals,like the Journal of the American Medical Association,are consideredgeneral medical
journals becausethey cover many fields of medicine.Most medical journals are specialty journalsthat focus
on a particular areaof medicine.
Medical journalspublish many types of articles.Research articles report the results of researchstudies
on a range of topicsvarying from the basic mechanisms of diseases to clinical trials that compareoutcomes of
differenttreatments.Review articles summarize and analyze、the information available on a specific topic
based on a carefulsearch of the medical literature.Because the results of individual researchstudies can be
affected by manyfactors,combining results from different studies on the same topic can behelpful in reaching
conclusions aboutthe scientific evidence for preventing,diagnosing or treating a particulardisease.Case
conferences and casereports may be published in medical journals to educate physicians aboutparticular
illnesses and how totreat them. Editorials in medical journals are short essays that express theviews of the
authors,oftenregarding a research or review article published in the same issue.Editorialsprovide a per-
spective on how thecurrent article fits with other information on the same topic.Letters to theeditor provide
it way for readersof the medical journal to express comments,questions or criticisms aboutarticles published
in that journal.
The main readersof medical journals are_________.
A.the general public
B.healthprofessionals
C.medical critics
D.news reporters