I ♥ CFP

Roger Ladouceur

Yes, I admit it, I ♥ Canadian Family Physician.

You’ll tell me that, coming from one of the editors, this declaration of love isn’t very original, and that to affirm the contrary would be much more surprising. And, because it is so easy to fall under the spell of this journal with its many charms, you would be absolutely right.

First, CFP is the only family medicine journal in Canada that is peer reviewed and indexed in PubMed. This ensures that it has a high level of scientific rigour. Unlike many other journals, whose articles are often solicited or written by journalists and reviewed, if they are reviewed at all, by the members of the editorial board, the continuing professional development and research articles published in CFP are all peer reviewed. It is the peer reviewers who ensure the scientific rigour of the journal. And let me tell you, these reviewers are very critical. I often read papers that initially seem just fine—until I read the comments of the reviewers. My heavens, they were right! Getting published in CFP is not easy, but the articles that make it in are scientifically robust.

Second, CFP is the only family medicine journal in Canada with articles in French and English. Anglophones and Francophones can express themselves and read articles in both languages—a true reflection of our bilingual country. This also shows just how tolerant and open family physicians are to our differences and similarities.

Canadian Family Physician also makes ample room for research, publishing in 2 formats: full-text research and “print short, web long” (whereby an abstract is published in the print version and the full text is available on-line). This allows us to publish a large number of research articles each month. It is hardly surprising that CFP’s Impact Factor stands at 1.092, which means that it is the fifth most cited family medicine journal in the world. And in contrast to some research journals that are read and perused by only a handful of elite researchers, CFP is distributed to all Canadian family physicians.

Recently, CFP made available a tool that makes it easier to submit a manuscript: Manuscript Central. This tool allows authors to submit texts on-line and to follow their progress through revision. Soon, CFP will be associated with HighWire Press, which will give readers on-line access to the complete texts of references from other HighWire sites that are cited in articles published in CFP.

Summer has arrived and it’s vacation time. The sun is bright and warm, the sand is soft, the breeze is exhilarating, and I ♥ CFP. Let’s hope that our good fortune lasts a long time and that you will share in it.