INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

Context

Medical Records (Med Records) is a peer-reviewed open-access periodical journal based on independent and unbiased double-blinded peer-reviewed principles, published three times a year, in March, July and October. Began its publication life in 2019, and all of its issues have been available electronically since 2019 (The journal will be published in January, May and September from 2021). Publication languages of the journal is English. The articles submitted are required to be unpublished and are not under review for publication elsewhere.

The aim of the Medical Records is to publish original research papers of the highest scientific and clinical value in all medical fields.

In all fields of general medicine, editorial comment/discussion, invited review, original research, case report, letters to the editor, and surgical technique studies in the basic and clinical sciences are evaluated for publishing.

The target audience of the journal includes researchers, physicians, and healthcare professionals who are interested in or working in all medical disciplines.


Editorial and Publication Process

The editorial and publication processes of the journal are shaped in accordance with the guidelines of the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), and National Information Standards Organization (NISO). The journal conforms to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (doaj.org/bestpractice).

Originality, high scientific quality, and citation potential are the most important criteria for a manuscript to be accepted for publication. Manuscripts submitted for evaluation should not have been previously presented or already published in an electronic or printed medium. The journal should be informed of manuscripts that have been submitted to another journal for evaluation and rejected for publication. The submission of previous reviewer reports will expedite the evaluation process. Manuscripts that have been presented in a meeting should be submitted with detailed information on the organization, including the name, date, and location of the organization.

Peer Review Process

The peer review process is double-blind, i.e., both authors and referees are kept anonymous. Pre-evaluation process of each submission is carried out by the Editorial Board. Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review by the editorin-chief if they do not comply with the instructions to authors or if they are beyond the scope of the journal. Any manuscript that does not conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, as reported at http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf, will also be rejected. Manuscripts are scanned for plagiarism or duplication. In case of an ethical issue on plagiarism or duplication, the Editorial Board will act in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The manuscripts which pass this stage are assigned to at least two double-blind peer-reviewers with a statistics reviewer. Reviewers are selected among independent experts who has published publications in the international literature on the submission subject and received considerable amount of citations. Research articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses are also reviewed by a biostatistician. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors accept that editor may implement changes on their manuscripts including misleading statements and mistypings, as long as the main idea of the manuscript is not interfered.

Ethical Procedures

An approval of research protocols by the Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects,” amended in October 2013, www.wma.net) is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies and for some case reports. If required, ethics committee reports, or an equivalent official document will be requested from the authors. Submissions which do not have ethical approval will be reviewed according to COPE’s Research, Audit and Service Evaluations guideline.

Such manuscripts can be rejected after editorial review due to the lack of ethics committee approval.

For manuscripts concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that written informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo.

It is the authors’ responsibility to protect the patients’ anonymity carefully. For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed releases of the patient or their legal representative should be enclosed, and the publication approval must be provided in the Methods section.

For studies carried out on animals, an approval research protocols by the Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements (Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals, 8th edition, 2011" and/or “International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals, 2012”) is required. Also, the measures taken to prevent pain and suffering of the animals should be stated clearly in such studies.

Information on patient consent, the name of the ethics committee, and the ethics committee approval number and date should also be stated in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Plagiarism

Medical Records is extremely sensitive about plagiarism. All submissions are screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck) at any point during the peer-review and/or production process. Even if you are the author of the phrases or sentences, the text should not have an unacceptable similarity with the previously published data. Those with an overall similarity index of greater than 21%, or duplication rate at or higher than 5% with a single source are returned back to authors without further evaluation along with the similarity report.

When you are discussing others' (or your own) previous work, please make sure that you cite the material correctly in every instance.

In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct, e.g., plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, the Editorial Board will follow and act following COPE guidelines.

Plagiarism and Ethical Misconduct
Policy of screening for plagiarism: Medical Records is extremely sensitive about plagiarism. All submissions are screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck) at any point during the peer-review and/or production process. Even if you are the author of the phrases or sentences, the text should not have an unacceptable similarity with the previously published data. Those with an overall similarity index of greater than 21%, or duplication rate at or higher than 5% with a single source are returned back to authors without further evaluation along with the similarity report.

When you are discussing others' (or your own) previous work, please make sure that you cite the material correctly in every instance.
Authors are strongly recommended to avoid any form plagiarism and ethical misconduct that are exemplified below.

Self- plagiarism (text-recycling): Overlapping sections or sentences with the author’s previous publications without citing them. Even if you are the author of the phrases or sentences, the text should not have unacceptable similarity with the previously published data.
Salami slicing: Using the same data of a research into several different articles. Reporting the same hypotheses, population, and methods of a study is into different papers is not acceptable.
Data Fabrication: It is the addition of data that never occurred during the gathering of data or the experiments. Results and their interpretation must be based on the complete data sets and reported accordingl.
Data Manipulation/Falsification: It means manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g. micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or ‘inconvenient’ results, changing data points, etc.

In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct, e.g., plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, the Editorial Board will follow and act according to COPE flowcharts.

Preprint
Medical Records does not consider preprint publications as prior publication. In other words, authors are allowed to present and discuss their findings on a non-commercial preprint server before submission to a journal.

Authors must provide the journal with the pre-print server deposition of their article accompanying its DOI during initial submission.
If the article is published in the Medical Records, it is the responsibility of the authors to update the archived preprint and link it to the published version of the article.

Authorship
Each person listed as an author should fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE - www.icmje.org). The ICMJE recommends that authorship is based on the following four criteria:

1.Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2.Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3.Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he/she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. Also, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged on the title page of the manuscript.

Medical Records requires corresponding authors to submit a signed and scanned version of the authorship contribution form (available for download through https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr the initial submission process to act appropriately on authorship rights and to prevent ghost or honorary authorship. If the editorial board suspects a case of “gift authorship,” the submission will be rejected without further review. As part of the submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author should also send a short statement declaring that he/she accepts to undertake all the responsibility for authorship during the submission and review stages of the manuscript.

Changes to Authorship
Medical Records reviews the authorship according to the author’s declaration in the Title Page, thus it is the authors responsibility to send the final order of the complete author names. Requests in the change of authorship (e.g. removal/addition of the authors, change in the order etc) after submission are subject to editorial approval. Editorial Board will investigate this kind of cases and act following COPE flowcharts.

Change of authorship requests should be submitted to the Editorial Office with an official letter stating the reasons of the change. The letter must be signed by all authors and include their approval on the change in authorship. If the request is approved by the Editorial Board, authors need to submit a new Copyright Agreement Form according to the final order list.

Declaration of Interest

Medical Records requires and encourages the authors and the individuals involved in the evaluation process of submitted manuscripts to disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest, including financial, consultant, and institutional, that might lead to potential bias or a conflict of interest. Any financial grants or other support received for a submitted study from individuals or institutions should be disclosed to the Editorial Board. To disclose a potential conflict of interest, the ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form should be filled in and submitted by all contributing authors. The journal’s Editorial Board resolves cases of a potential conflict of interest of the editors, authors, or reviewers within the scope of COPE and ICMJE guidelines.

The Editorial Board of the journal handles all appeal and complaint cases within the scope of COPE guidelines. In such cases, authors should get in direct contact with the editorial office regarding their appeals and complaints. When needed, an ombudsperson may be assigned to resolve claims that cannot be resolved internally. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all appeals and complaints.

Appeals and complaint
The Editorial Board of the journal handles all appeal and complaint cases within the scope of COPE guidelines. In such cases, authors should get in direct contact with the editorial office regarding their appeals and complaints. When needed, an ombudsperson may be assigned to resolve claims that cannot be resolved internally. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all appeals and complaints.

Copyright and License

Medical Records requires each submission to be accompanied by a Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship Form (available for download https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr when using previously published content, including figures, tables, or any other material in both print and electronic formats, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder. Legal, financial and criminal liabilities in this regard belong to the author(s). By signing this form, authors retain the copyright of their work and agree that the article, if accepted for publication by the Medical Records will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International License which permits third parties to share and adapt the content for non-commercial purposes by giving the appropriate credit to the original work.

When using previously published content, including figures, tables, or any other material in both print and electronic formats, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder. Legal, financial and criminal liabilities in this regard belong to the author(s).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Disclaimer
Statements or opinions expressed in the manuscripts published in Medical Recordsreflect the views of the author(s) and not the opinions of the editors, the editorial board, or the publisher; the editors, the editorial board, and the publisher disclaim any responsibility or liability for such materials. The final responsibility regarding the published content rests with the authors.

Manuscript Preparation
The manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ICMJE-Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated in December 2019 - http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). Authors are required to prepare manuscripts in accordance with the CONSORT guidelines for randomized research studies, STROBE guidelines for observational original research studies, STARD guidelines for studies on diagnostic accuracy, PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analysis, ARRIVE guidelines for experimental animal studies, and TREND guidelines for non-randomized public behavior. Please ensure your case report or case series is compliant with the SCARE Guidelines and submit a completed. Please ensure your case series is compliant with the PROCESS Guidelines.

Manuscripts can only be submitted through the journal’s online manuscript submission and evaluation system, available at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr Manuscripts submitted via any other medium and submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be evaluated.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal will first go through a technical evaluation process where the editorial office staff will ensure that the manuscript has been prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal’s guidelines. Submissions that do not conform to the journal’s guidelines will be returned to the submitting author with technical correction requests.

Authors are required to submit the following:

• Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship Form and
• ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form (should be filled in by all contributing authors) during the initial submission. These forms are available for download at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr The process for handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern

Medical Records publishes Original Articles on clinical and experimental research related to any area of medicine. Editorials, letter to the Editor, Review articles, Case reports and technical note on clinical observations may also be considered. By submitting a manuscript to this journal, authors accept that their manuscript may be screened for plagiarism against previously published works.

The corresponding author will receive an e-mail that informs the status of manuscript at any step of reviewing and publishing process. Medical Records now offers Accepted Articles for all articles within a short time of acceptance. All process will be completed within one or two months from the receiving of submitted manuscript.

Corrections, Retractions & Expressions of Concern
To provide a better service to the researchers in the academic community, the International Medical Records believes that clarity in the publishing record is a must for information distribution. Recognizing a published article as a finalized “Version of Record” indicates that it is accurate, complete, and citable. The Medical Records Surgery defines this Version of Record as the initial article publication for open access journals.
It is assumed that manuscripts report on the work based on honest observations. However, occasionally information becomes available which may contradict this. In such cases, the Medical Records applies Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern.

Corrections: Errors in published papers may be identified that requires publication of a correction in the form of a corrigendum or erratum. Since articles can be read and cited as soon as they are published, any changes thereafter could potentially impact those who read and cited the earlier version. The Medical Records provides authors an opportunity to review the article proofs prior to publication with the purpose of ensuring the accuracy of the content. Publishing an erratum or corrigendum increases the likelihood readers will find out about the change and also explains the specifics of the change.

Corrigenda and Errata will appear on a numbered page and contain the citation of the original article. If these corrections are insufficient to address an error, the Editor-in-Chief will handle them on a case-by-case basis. Inadequacies arising from the normal course of new scientific research are not within the scope of this and do not require any correction or withdrawal.

Expressions of Concern & Retractions: Where substantial doubt arises as to the honesty or integrity of a submitted or published article, it is the Editor-in-Chief's responsibility to ensure that the matter is adequately addressed, usually by the authors' sponsoring institution. In general, the Editor-in-Chief is not responsible for conducting the investigation or making a definite decision. The Editor-in-Chief should be promptly informed of the decision of the sponsoring institution and a retraction printed should it be determined that a fraudulent paper was published. Alternatively, the Editor-in-Chief may choose to publish an expression of concern over the aspects of the conduct or integrity of the work.

Retractions will appear on a numbered page and contain the citation of the original article.

Changes to authorship
Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.


Preparation of the Manuscript

Title page: A separate title page should be submitted with all submissions and this page should include:

• The full title of the manuscript as well as a short title (running head) of no more than 50 characters,

• Name(s), affiliations, highest academic degree(s), and ORCID IDs of the author(s),
• Grant information and detailed information on the other sources of support,

• Name, address, telephone (including the mobile phone number), and email address of the corresponding author,

• Acknowledgment of the individuals who contributed to the preparation of the manuscript but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria.

ORCID ID
The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) number of each author must be submitted when creating an account for correspondence. To obtain an ORCID number, please visit https://orcid.org/

Abstract: An abstract should be submitted with all submissions except for Letters to the Editor. The abstract of Original Articles should be structured with subheadings (Objective, Materials and Methods, Results, and Conclusion). Please check Table 1 below for word count specifications.

Keywords: Each submission must be accompanied by a minimum of three to a maximum of six keywords for subject indexing at the end of the abstract. The keywords should be listed in full without abbreviations. The keywords should be selected from the National Library of Medicine, Medical Subject Headings database (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).

Manuscript Types

Original Articles: This is the most important type of article since it provides new information based on original research. The main text of original articles should be structured with Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion subheadings. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Original Articles.

Statistical analysis to support conclusions is usually necessary. Statistical analyses must be conducted in accordance with international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93). Information on statistical analyses should be provided with a separate subheading under the Materials and Methods section and the statistical software that was used during the process must be specified.

Units should be prepared in accordance with the International System of Units (SI).

Clinical Trials
Medical Records adopts the ICMJE's clinical trial registration policy, which requires that clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov.

Instructions for the clinical trials are listed below.

• Clinical trial registry is only required for the prospective research projects that study the relationship between a health-related intervention and an outcome by assigning people.
• To have their manuscript evaluated in the journal, author should register their research to a public registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment.
• Based on most up to date ICMJE recommendations Medical Records accepts public registries that include minimum acceptable 24-item trial registration dataset.
• Authors are required to state a data sharing plan for the clinical trial registration. Please see details under “Data Sharing” section.
• For further details, please check ICMJE Clinical Trial Policy at
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html
Data Sharing

Authors are required to provide a data sharing statement for the articles that reports the results of a clinical trial. The data sharing statement should indicate the items below according to the ICMJE data sharing policy:
• Whether individual deidentified participant data will be shared
• What data in particular will be shared
• Whether additional, related documents will be available
• When the data will be available and for how long
• By what access criteria will be shared

Authors are recommended to check the ICMJE data sharing examples at
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

While submitting a clinical trial to Medical Records,
• Authors are required to make registration to a publicly accessible registry according to ICMJE recommendations and the instructions above.
• The name of the registry and the registration number should be provided in the Title Page during the initial submission.
• Data sharing statement should also be stated in the Title Page even the authors do not plan to share it.
Reporting Statistical Analysis
Statistical analysis to support conclusions is usually necessary. Statistical analyses must be conducted in accordance with international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93). Information on statistical analyses should be provided with a separate subheading under the Materials and Methods section and the statistical software that was used during the process must be specified.
Values for reporting statistical data, such as P values and CIs should be presented and rounded appropriately. P values should be expressed to 2 digits to the right of the decimal point unless the first 2 digits are zeros, in which case 3 digits to the right of the decimal place should be provided (eg, instead of P < .01, report as P = .002). However, values close to .05 may be reported to 3 decimal places because the .05 is an arbitrary cut point for statistical significance (eg, P = .053). P values less than .001 should be designated as P < .001 rather than exact values (eg, P = .000006).
Units should be prepared in accordance with the International System of Units (SI).

Review Articles: Reviews prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge on a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into a high volume of publications with a high citation potential are welcomed. These authors may even be invited by the journal. Reviews should describe, discuss, and evaluate the current level of knowledge of a topic in clinical practice and should guide future studies. The main text should contain Introduction, Clinical and Research Consequences, and Conclusion sections. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Review Articles.

Case Reports: Brief descriptions of a previously undocumented disease process, a unique unreported manifestation or treatment of a known disease process, or unique unreported complications of treatment regimens. Case reports should include an adequate number of images and figures. Case reports should be accompanied by “Informed Consent” whether the identity of the patients is disclosed or not. The “Informed Consent Form” is available at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Case Report.

Letters to the Editor: Two types of letter are welcome. One is comment on a recently published article in our journal and the other one is case report. The comments should be written in a logical way to discuss important parts, overlooked aspects or lacking part of the paper. As a case report we only accept for publication the reports on rare cases or conditions that constitute challenges in diagnosis and treatment, those offering new therapies or revealing knowledge not included in the literature, and interesting and educative cases. The text for case reports should include Introduction, Case Report, and Discussion, subheadings. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Letter to Editor.

References: While citing publications, preference should be given to the latest, most up-to-date publications. If an ahead-of-print publication is cited, the DOI number should be provided. References should be written in compliance with Vancouver style (see. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/). Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. Journal titles should be abbreviated in accordance with the journal abbreviations in Index Medicus/ MEDLINE/PubMed. When there are four or fewer authors, all authors should be listed. If there are five or more authors, the first three authors should be listed followed by “et al.” In the main text of the manuscript, references should be cited using Arabic numbers in parentheses. The reference styles for different types of publications are presented in the following examples. References should be limited to 10 for letters to the editor, 20 for case reports, 40 for clinical/experimental reports and review articles. Journal abbreviations should conform to the style used in the Cumulated Index Medicus (please see www.icmje.org). Journal articles, books, web pages, conference presentations, newspapers, audio-visual sources like CDs and DVDs, articles pending for publication, theses, and dissertations can be used as references.

Reference Format for Journal Articles: Authors’ initials, surnames and names, article titles, journal titles, date, volume, number and pagination must be indicated. E.g.:

For journal articles
Celbis O, Karakoc Y, Ozdemir B, et al. Investigation of lead mobilization from the buckshot residues to the critical organs. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2011;143:688-94.

For book references
DiMaio WJ, DiMaio D. Time of death. In: Forensic Pathology. 2nd edition. CRC Press, London, 2001;21-42.
Madea B, Henssge C. Timing of death. In: Payne-James J, Busuttil A, Smock W, eds, Forensic Medicine: Clinical Pathological Aspects. London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd. 2003;91-114.

For internet references
Beware: Toy Noise may be too loud for kids. http://hearingaiddocs. wordpress.com/tag/loud-toys access date 22.04.2013

For congress presentations
Brandes U, Wagner D. A Bayesian paradigm for dynamic graph layout. 11th International Symposium on Graph Drawing, 12-15 November 2003. New York, USA, 236-47.

For newspaper references
Susan S. How to prevent breast cancer. Australian 23 October 2003.

For CD-ROM references
The Oxford English Dictionary [CD-ROM]. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 1992.

For accepted articles
Kaya A, Aktas EO. Perception differences between in violence against child. Med-Science. Published Online: Nov 19, 2013.

For thesis
Karakoc Y. Biological effect of direct electrical current in essential (idiopathic) hyperhidrosis. Ph.D. thesis, Istanbul University, Istanbul, 1996.

In case of use of a previously published table, figure or illustration, reference of the material must be cited in reference list.

Table 1. Limitations for each manuscript type

Tables
Tables should be included in the main document, presented after the reference list, and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text. A descriptive title must be placed above the tables. Abbreviations used in the tables should be defined below the tables by footnotes (even if they are defined within the main text). Tables should be created using the “insert table” command of the word processing software and they should be arranged clearly to provide easy reading. Data presented in the tables should not be a repetition of the data presented within the main text but should be supporting the main text.

Figures and Figure Legends
Figures, graphics, and photographs should be submitted as separate files (in TIFF or JPEG format) through the submission system. The files should not be embedded in a Word document or the main document. When there are figure subunits, the subunits should not be merged to form a single image. Each subunit should be submitted separately through the submission system. Images should not be labeled (a, b, c, etc.) to indicate figure subunits. Thick and thin arrows, arrowheads, stars, asterisks, and similar marks can be used on the images to support figure legends. Like the rest of the submission, the figures too should be blind. Any information within the images that may indicate an individual or institution should be blinded. The minimum resolution of each submitted figure should be 300 DPI. To prevent delays in the evaluation process, all submitted figures should be clear in resolution and large in size (minimum dimensions: 100 × 100 mm). Figure legends should be listed at the end of the main document.

All acronyms and abbreviations used in the manuscript should be defined at first use, both in the abstract and in the main text. The abbreviation should be provided in parentheses following the definition.

When a drug, product, hardware, or software program is mentioned within the main text, product information, including the name of the product, the producer of the product, and city and the country of the company (including the state if in USA), should be provided in parentheses in the following format: “Discovery St PET/CT scanner (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI, USA)”

All references, tables, and figures should be referred to within the main text, and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text.

Limitations, drawbacks, and the shortcomings of original articles should be mentioned in the Discussion section before the conclusion paragraph.

REVISIONS
When submitting a revised version of a paper, the author must submit a detailed “Response to the reviewers” that states point by point how each issue raised by the reviewers has been covered and where it can be found (each reviewer’s comment, followed by the author’s reply and line numbers where the changes have been made) as well as an annotated copy of the main document. Revised manuscripts must be submitted within 30 days from the date of the decision letter. If the revised version of the manuscript is not submitted within the allocated time, the revision option may be canceled. If the submitting author(s) believe that additional time is required, they should request this extension before the initial 30-day period is over.

Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, and format. Once the publication process of a manuscript is completed, it is published online on the journal’s webpage as an ahead-of-print publication before it is included in its scheduled issue. A PDF proof of the accepted manuscript is sent to the corresponding author and their publication approval is requested within 2 days of their receipt of the proof.

Editor in Chief

Assoc. Prof. Zülal Öner
Address: İzmir Bakırçay University, Department of Anatomy, İzmir, Turkey
E-mail: medrecsjournal@gmail.com

Open Access Policy

Medical Records provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supporting a greater global exchange of knowledge. Open access means that all content is freely available on the internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution and the only role for copyright in this domain, is given to authors to retain control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.

Additional details on the Budapest Open Access Initiative and their guidelines are available at https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/, including a Turkish translation of the recommendations at http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-translations/turkish-translation.

Fee - Charges
This journal assesses NO submission fees, publication fees (article processing charges), or page charges.

Creative Commons License
A Creative Commons license is a public copyright license that enables the free distribution of copyrighted work. The Medical Records articles are licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) version. The author grants the right to share and use original work with the condition that it be appropriately credited, it may not be used for commercial purposes, and secondary products must also be made available under the same terms of use. Specific details can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Medical Records is committed to encouraging dissemination of academic work and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Copyright and License
Medical Records requires each submission to be accompanied by a Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship Form (available for download https://turkishjournalofvascularsurgery.org/ when using previously published content, including figures, tables, or any other material in both print and electronic formats, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder. Legal, financial and criminal liabilities in this regard belong to the author(s). By signing this form, authors retain the copyright of their work and agree that the article, if accepted for publication by the Medical Records will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International License which permits third parties to share and adapt the content for non-commercial purposes by giving the appropriate credit to the original work.
When using previously published content, including figures, tables, or any other material in both print and electronic formats, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder. Legal, financial and criminal liabilities in this regard belong to the author(s).

Ethical Procedures
An approval of research protocols by the Ethics Committee in accordance with international agreements (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects,” amended in October 2013, www.wma.net) is required for experimental, clinical, and drug studies and for some case reports. If required, ethics committee reports or an equivalent official document will be requested from the authors. For manuscripts concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows that written informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. For studies carried out on animals, the measures taken to prevent the pain and suffering of the animals should be stated clearly. Information on patient consent, the name of the ethics committee, and the ethics committee approval number should also be stated in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript. It is the authors’ responsibility to protect the patients’ anonymity carefully.
For photographs that may reveal the identity of the patients, signed releases of the patient or their legal representative should be enclosed, and the publication approval must be provided in the Materials and Methods section.


Publication Fee
Peer Review Process
The peer review process is double-blind, i.e., both authors and referees are kept anonymous. Pre-evaluation process of each submission is carried out by the Editorial Board. Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review by the editorin-chief if they do not comply with the instructions to authors or if they are beyond the scope of the journal. Any manuscript that does not conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, as reported at http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf, will also be rejected. Manuscripts are scanned for plagiarism or duplication. In case of an ethical issue on plagiarism or duplication, the Editorial Board will act in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The manuscripts which pass this stage are assigned to at least two double-blind peer-reviewers with a statistics reviewer. Reviewers are selected among independent experts who has published publications in the international literature on the submission subject and received considerable amount of citations. Research articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses are also reviewed by a biostatistician. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors accept that editor may implement changes on their manuscripts including misleading statements and mistypings, as long as the main idea of the manuscript is not interfered.

Peer Review Policy
The practice of peer review is to ensure that only good science is published. It is an objective process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out by all reputable scientific journals. Our referees play a vital role in maintaining the high standards Review Policy and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.
• Initial Manuscript Evaluation: The Editor first evaluates all manuscripts. It is rare, but it is possible for an exceptional manuscript to be accepted at this stage. Manuscripts rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are normally passed on to at least 2 experts for review.
• Type of Peer Review: Policy employs double blind reviewing, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process.
• How the Referee is Selected?: Whenever possible, referees are matched to the paper according to their expertise and our database is constantly being updated.
• Referee Reports: Referees are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript: – Is original – Is methodologically sound – Follows appropriate ethical guidelines – Has results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions – Correctly references previous relevant work.
Language correction is not part of the peer review process, but referees may, if so wish, suggest corrections to the manuscript.
• How Long Does the Review Process Take?: The time required for the review process is dependent on the response of the referees. Should the referee’s reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought. The Editor’s decision will be sent to the author with recommendations made by the referees, which usually includes verbatim comments by the referees. Revised manuscripts might be returned to the initial referees who may then request another revision of a manuscript.
• Final Report: A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees, and may include verbatim comments by the referees.
• Editor’s Decision is Final: Referees advise the editor, who is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article.

Plagiarism
Medical Records is extremely sensitive about plagiarism. All submissions are screened by a similarity detection software (iThenticate by CrossCheck) at any point during the peer-review and/or production process. Even if you are the author of the phrases or sentences, the text should not have an unacceptable similarity with the previously published data.
When you are discussing others’ (or your own) previous work, please make sure that you cite the material correctly in every instance.
In the event of alleged or suspected research misconduct, e.g., plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/ fabrication, the Editorial Board will follow and act following COPE guidelines.

Reviewer Information

Medical Records is an open access fully refereed international medical journal that publishes interesting original research conducted in all fields of medicine, interesting case reports and clinical images, reviews, editorials, letters, comments and letters to the Editor including reports on publication and research ethics.

The journal is based on independent and unbiased double-blinded peer-reviewed principles. Only unpublished papers that are not under review for publication elsewhere can be submitted. The language of the journal is English The Editorial Board of Medical Records adheres to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the editorial and scientific content of Annals of Medical Researchand the timing of publication of the content. Manuscripts that comply with the main rules of the journal are sent to at least two external reviewers, and the reviewers are asked for their opinion about the suitability of the paper for publication. The reviewed manuscripts are then re-reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board and a decision of rejection or acceptance is shaped.

All articles submitted to Medical Records  for publication should be reviewed for their originality, methodology, importance, quality, ethical nature and suitability for the journal. If the reviewers need, they can go through Aims and Scope and Author Information for detailed information. Medical Records  asks reviewers to make a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief. Peer reviewers should provide an objective critical evaluation of the paper in the broadest terms practicable. The reviewers’ reports should contain a recommendation and a description of their reasons for that recommendation. If the reviewers believe the paper needs changes to be made before it is acceptable, they should make suggestions on how to improve the paper. In the same way, if the reviewers feel that a paper is not good enough and has no real prospects of being improved sufficiently to be published they should recommend rejection. The reviewers may indicate if the manuscript requires its english grammar, punctuation or spelling to be corrected. Medical Records encourages the reviewers to comment on possible research or publication misconduct like unethical research design, duplication or plagiarism. If the reviewers have any suspect, the editors can provide them information obtained by plagiarism screening tools (i.e. iThenticate).

Medical Records requests reviewers to treat the manuscripts in confidence. The material of the manuscripts must not be used or shared in any way until they have been published. Medical Records follows the COPE flowchart in cases of suspected reviewer misconduct. Please refer to COPE ethical guidelines for peer reviewers for "Basic principles to which peer reviewers should adhere" and "Expectations from reviewers". If the reviewers have any potential conflict of interests, they must notify the Editor-in-Chief before agreeing to review a submission. The Editors will act in accordance with the relevant international rules of publication ethics such as COPE guidelines, ICMJE Recommendations or WAME resources if any ethical misconduct is suspected. The submission process for a manuscript is completed online through a submission system through the following website: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr The reviewers can also reach their personal pages: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/medr The invitation sent to reviewers provides a date when the Editorial Board requires to have received the reviewers’ comments.

Editor in Chief
Assoc. Prof. Zülal Öner
Address: İzmir Bakırçay University, Department of Anatomy, İzmir, Turkey
E-mail: medrecsjournal@gmail.com