Medical Journal of Western Black Sea is a scientific publication of Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit University Faculty of Medicine. This is a refereed journal, which aims at achieving free knowledge to the national and international organizations and individuals related to medical sciences in published and electronic forms. This journal is published three annually in April, August and December. The publication language of the journal is Turkish and English.

The aim of the journal is to announce quality researches in medicine and respective subjects to the national and international scientific environment, sharing and creating a continuous training platform to contribute to the provision of scientific and social communication in Turkey and abroad.

In pursuit of these objectives in the journal original research, case reports, reviews, letters to the editor, biography, writings and conference proceedings brought to articles format are published. The papers presented at the symposium, congress, electronic media or preliminary studies can be published provided that this is stated. 

The manuscripts will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that they are being submitted to one journal at a time and have not been published, simultaneously submitted or already accepted for publication elsewhere.

Editor and assistant editors review all submitted manuscripts initially. Then the manuscript is sent to the scientific advisory board member for evaluation. All the articles submitted to the journal for publication are referred to peer review. Corrections can be made in appropriate cases. Authors may answer some questions and may be asked to revise their article. Articles decided to be published in the journal would be taken in the process of page arrangement. At this stage, all the articles are checked for the accuracy of the information they give. Articles brought to the control of the authors are completed and submitted for approval prior to publication.

SCIENTIFIC RESPONSIBILITY

All manuscripts’ scientific responsibility belongs to the authors. Authors specified in the article must be at a certain rate of contribution. The order of authorship should be a joint decision. Authors must indicate in the form of a signed transfer copyright of the author rankings. All of the author's name should be placed in the paper section at the bottom of the title. Contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship can be listed in the section ‘Acknowledgements’.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY

• For any liability arising from non-compliance with the Code of Ethics belong(s) author(s).

The "human" element in all studies involving compliance with the Principles of the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association (http://www.wma.net/en/30 publications / 10policies / b3 / index.html) principle is accepted. Therefore, all articles submitted for publication must be stated that compliance with the ethical standards of the above committee. In these studies, the author of the article had been made in accordance with the above principles in the MATERIALS AND METHODS section of the study, approval from the ethics committee and the individuals involved in the work / of the parents’ "Informed Consent" and acknowledgment is required. Any necessary approval from local and international ethics documents must also be sent along with the article.

• For experimental studies related "Animals" elements, author of the article are required to report in MATERIALS AND METHODS section that they received approval from the ethics committee in the institution where the study was conducted, in order to protect animal rights in accordance with the principles of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html). 

• Certificates for the studies requiringthe ethic committee approval must be submitted to the board of the journal with the article.

• If there are quoted article which were previously published, tables, images, etc in the articleauthors must obtain written permission from the copyright holder and also this must be mentioned in the article.

• If directly or indirectly trade links or financial support institution for the study; at the source page, used commercial products, pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical companies etc. If there isno trade or be obliged the association that kind of a relationship, it must be mentioned in the article.

• Editors and the publisher do not accept responsibility for the purpose of advertising commercial product specifications and descriptions published in the journal.

CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY OF THE PATIENTS AND THE STUDY PARTICIPANTS

• Especially patient's name, the shortening of the name, patient protocol number and registration number should not be used.

• Unless patient consent and / or there is specific evidence regarding eyes, eyes in the photo will be masked in order the patient not to be recognized.

• If descriptive information is absolutely necessary for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) in writing 'Informed Consent' give permission, cannot be published.. 'Informed Consent' must be stated in the article is taken.

RELATIONS WITH EDITORS, AUTHORS AND REFEREES

Manuscripts submitted to the journal, must be prepared according to journal writing rules and brought to ready to complete the page edition. Extension board has the authority to ask the author revise the article and has also the authority to return writings which do not obey the spelling rules.  An article containing answers to the referees should be added by the author with the desired corrections.

Editors and language editors are fully authorized in amendments and corrections for writing, language, spelling, spelling correction of compliance with the rules and control of references in other related topics.

Excerpts have been published previously in the article text, tables, and there are photographs, the author of the article is responsible for publication and has the right to obtain written permission from the author and must also be noted in this article.

Articles submitted to the journal will be sent to the referee by the editorial board according to blinding consultation system (peer-review) by removing author names from the text. Also, the authors do not be provided information about the referees. Editor does not share any information regarding articles (article receipt, review the contents of the review process, criticism of the referees or final results) with anyone except from the authors and referees. The referees and editorial board members cannot discuss articles publicly. The authors of the article are about to be released within six weeks.

After reviewing the article, referees send evaluation to editor. Referee's evaluation cannot be printed or disclosed without author and editor’s permission. Attention is paid to the anonymity of the referees. In some cases, the decision of the editor's interpretation of the relevant article is informed to other referees to review the referee sent the same article for clarifying the process.

TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Original Article: 

Clinical, laboratory, epidemiological and all kinds of experimental studies can be published. Original research articles should consist of the following chapters; Abstract (Turkish and English), introduction, materials and methods, findings, discussion, thanks, resources. After the discussion section, information should be given about ”conflict of interest.

Review:

Compilations of current topics in Basic, Internal and Surgical Medical Sciences can be written directly or by invited authors. Review articles should consist of the following sections;Review articles should consist of the following sections; Abstract (Turkish and English), Text, References.

Case Report:

Patients who are rarely seen in the field of Basic, Internal and Surgical Medical Sciences, who have innovations and differences in their diagnosis and treatment, have been treated and followed up, are included. Case reports should consist of the following sections; Abstract (Turkish and English), Introduction, Case, Discussion, References.