Mission

The Journal of Student-Run Clinics (ISSN 2474-9354) is a student-run, peer-reviewed (single-blind) publication with a specific focus on student-run clinics (SRCs). The primary goals are to spread inspiration for and increase communication regarding SRCs and best practices in patient care, student education, and practice management in such clinics through the regular showcasing of original media submitted by students and faculty actively involved in SRCs around the globe. Welcoming content from a wide range of topics, the publication is primed to highlight insights and innovations related to different aspects of SRCs, from clinic models to quality improvement to ethics and beyond. The content is free to access, and there are no submission, processing, or publication fees. Following the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles or use them for any other lawful purpose. Finally, the Journal of Student-Run Clinics seeks to be a nexus of inter-clinic and inter-disciplinary engagement and collaboration through shared participation in the publishing process at all levels in associated institutions everywhere.  

To make our materials more accessible, it is also our priority to be indexed by popular searchable databases such as MEDLINE and PubMed Central once we achieve the publication volume and quality criteria established by the National Library of Medicine. We are currently indexed in Google Scholar. As the Journal of Student-Run Clinics grows, we anticipate a natural progression to this stage.

The Journal of Student-Run Clinics is the official journal of the Society of Student-Run Free Clinics (SSRFC). The SSRFC is an international, interprofessional association that promotes collaboration between student-run free clinics by sharing ideas, resources, and data and contributes to the growth of new clinics. Although the SSRFC broadly represents clinics that provide their services for free, both the Society and the Journal welcome participation from all student-run clinics.

Scope

A student-run clinic is loosely defined as a service-learning project organized and motivated by students who seek to regularly provide any discipline's health services (i.e., medical, dental, physical therapy, pharmacy, veterinary, etc.) to the local community. The Journal of Student-Run Clinics considers submissions on diverse topics related to SRCs.

Article Types

The Journal of Student-Run Clinics categorizes submissions into five general types:

  • Original studies
    • Demographic - Studies regarding population needs assessment, disease prevalence, community mapping, and characteristic surveys of patients, students, or faculty are examples of this class of article.
    • Outcomes - This type of article describes the quantified results of a project or intervention, such as patient care quality improvement, medical education, community impact, practice management, health economic impact, or other areas. Even if projects do not have positive or practically significant outcomes, a submission discussing challenges and potential improvement points is encouraged.
  • Descriptive reports
    • Articles in this category may provide details of the establishment, function, and evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of a clinic model, educational series, outreach project, interdisciplinary program, technology implementation, fundraising endeavor, or other SRC initiative.
  • Literature reviews
    • Narrative reviews of literature about specific questions relevant to SRCs can be submitted for publication. They should include a critical assessment of the works cited, explanations of conflicts in the literature, and analysis of the question. The conclusion must discuss in detail the limitations of current knowledge, future directions to be pursued in research, and the overall importance of the topic.
  • Meta-analyses
    • Meta-analyses and systematic reviews of the literature on specific questions relevant to SRCs can be submitted for publication. 
  • Perspective articles
    • Analyses of ethical/legal, social, business, or other perspectives on SRCs, their activities, the target population, participants, or other components will be considered for perspective articles.
  • Case Reports
    • Reports describing one or more unique patient cases with a teaching point on how the SRC benefited the patient. 

Authorship

We follow ICMJE recommendations regarding authorship, which request all authors to (1) contribute substantially to the project conception, data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation, (2) be involved in drafting or revising the manuscript for intellectual content, (3) approve the final manuscript to be published, and (4) agree to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work. If it is unclear whether a contributor should be listed as an author or under acknowledgments, please refer to ICMJE Recommendations: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.

Institutional Affiliation

Each author must list an institution where the research was conducted. In cases where authors have moved to different institutions before the article has been published, they should list the affiliation where the majority of the research was conducted, and the current affiliation and contact details can be listed in a separate section of the paper. Authors are encouraged to include an ORCID ID.

Competing Interests

 Any financial or other potential conflicts of interest from all authors should be declared in the "Disclosures" section of the article. Authors may download and use the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest to assist in generating a standardized statement to include in the "Disclosures" section. Reviewers and editors must disclose, avoid, or appropriately manage conflicts of interest. 

 If such conflicts exist, reviewers should notify the editors to decline the review request. Knowing one of the authors or having prior knowledge of the submission does not necessarily imply a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest include but are not limited to:

  • A situation where the reviewer could gain financially or personally from reviewing the submission
  • Involvement in a similar submission under or pending review in the same or other publication outlets
  • Close personal or professional (collaborative or competitive) relationship with any of the authors

Confidentiality

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal. They will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. Editors, authors, and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts. Reviewers should not contact authors unless approved by the editors. Reviewers should not make mention of reviews nor share or discuss manuscripts with anyone other than the editors or another reviewer. However, with the editors' permission, the reviewer may involve a junior colleague to provide him or her experience. Occasionally the reviewer may also seek additional review from consultants with methodologic expertise. A manuscript under consideration is the sole property of the author, so it should be destroyed after review by a peer reviewer or editor. 

Plagiarism and duplicate publication

The ORI (Office of Research Integrity) defines plagiarism to include "theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work."  JSRC will not tolerate plagiarism from authors, reviewers, or editors. A duplicate, multiple, or redundant publication occurs when an author uses the same intellectual material more than once without explicit reference to the previous publication. JSRC accepts original research only. All submissions that are under review are evaluated for plagiarism through the online platform, Dupli Checker. If the submission includes a reprinted figure or table from a prior publication, written permission is required from the entity that first published the work, along with an appropriate citation. Submissions must explicitly state that they are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. 

Conference proceedings, prior presentations, and publications

The journal will consider work previously published or presented in a conference proceeding. Appropriate permissions should be obtained to reuse material previously published.

Image and figure integrity and standards

Digital images should be minimally processed. While a certain degree of processing is acceptable, purposeful manipulation of images beyond minimal processing could be considered fraud. The final image must accurately represent the original. Should an image be under question, editors may request unprocessed files to review. Number all figures (graphs, charts, photographs, and illustrations) in the order of their citation in the text. The number of figures should be limited. Avoid complex composite or multipart figures unless justified.  For initial manuscript submissions, figures must be of sufficient quality and may be embedded at the end of the file for editorial assessment and peer review. If a revision is requested and before a manuscript is accepted, authors will be asked to provide figures that meet the requirements described in Figure File Requirements for Publication. Graphs, charts, illustrations, titles, legends, keys, and other elements related to figures in accepted manuscripts will be re-created and edited according to JSRC  style and standards before publication.

Peer-review policy

The Journal of Student-Run Clinics categorizes submissions into five general types: original studies, descriptive reports, literature reviews, meta-analyses, and perspective articles. The level of peer review that each submission undergoes is dependent on the article type:

Article Type    Student Review       Faculty Review   
Original study x x
Descriptive report x  x
Literature review x x
Meta-analysis x x
Perspective x  

Once submissions are categorized to determine the level of review, all articles undergo an initial round of screening to assess the relevance, readability, and general methodological and ethical validity. This process is not designed to exclude works based on perceived impact but rather to select articles of potential interest to the greater SRC community. Manuscripts that pass the initial screening are sent for evaluation by trained student reviewers at affiliated institutions. If a manuscript passes the initial round of review and is of an article type that requires further review, it is sent for evaluation by faculty experts. Utilizing the comments and recommendations from the reviewers, the editorial board then classifies a submission for acceptance with or without revision or rejection. Additionally, authors may be requested to submit revisions to continue along the editorial process at any point along this continuum. Submissions are accepted continuously, and the Journal of Student-Run Clinics publishes on a rolling basis.

Reporting standards and availability of data, materials, code, and protocols

We encourage all authors to make their data available. In cases where this may not be feasible, we encourage authors to include a data availability statement at the end of the "Materials and Methods" section. This statement should provide information on where and under what conditions the data directly supporting the publication can be accessed. An example statement may read: The data supporting this study's findings are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Exceptions
Data sharing is encouraged except in situations where data sharing violates the protection of human subjects or other valid subject privacy concerns. If you have concerns about sharing your data, please contact journal@journalsrc.org.

Ethics
If applicable, a statement that the research protocol was approved or exempt by the relevant institutional review board (IRB) or other ethical review body should be included in the article. In addition, for studies conducted with human subjects, the method of obtaining informed consent from the participants (i.e., verbal or written) also needs to be stated in the methods section. Any financial or other potential conflicts of interest from all authors should be declared in the disclosures section of the article. Authors may download and use the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest to assist in generating a standardized statement to include in the "Disclosures" section.

When a formal institutional review board process is not available, the authors must indicate that the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki have been followed. More information regarding the Declaration of Helsinki can be found at http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/

Correction and retraction policy

The Journal of Student-Run Clinics takes full responsibility to correct errors as they occur. Content published online or in an issue is considered the final published record and must be preserved; therefore, all changes to articles must be made as a formal correction. Corrections will be published online and in the next available issue and bi-directionally linked to the original article.  These corrections will then be picked up by indexing and aggregating databases. Modifications will be reviewed and considered if they affect the publication record, the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.  Corrections that do not significantly affect the form may not be approved (i.e., a spelling error). Erratum appended to new document galley

Retractions will be considered if results are invalid or ethical guidelines have been violated (i.e., applicable cases of plagiarism or ghostwriting). All co-authors must sign a retraction detailing the error and how the conclusions were affected. The editorial board makes all corrections or decisions about retractions. Author consultation may be required. When coauthors disagree about a correction, the editors will consult with independent peer reviewers before applying the appropriate correction.

Self-archiving and license to publish

Following review and acceptance of the article for publication, the manuscript will be copyedited and released online in the Journal of Student-Run Clinics. Accepted manuscripts are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows for unrestricted sharing and use of all content with proper citation. All content is open access. 

Advertising 

The Journal of Student-Run Clinics does not allow advertising. We have no relationships with advertising partners.

Contact Us

To contact the Journal of Student-Run Clinics with any questions or if your institution would like to get involved with the Journal, please e-mail journal@journalsrc.org.