Acta Medica
Journal of Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové 

Instructions to authors

The journal Acta Medica (Hradec Kralove) publishes four issues per year and includes the following categories:

1. Review Articles (10 - 15 pages, including references)
2. Original Articles (10 - 12 pages, including references and illustrations)
3. Brief Communications (max. 4 pages, including references and max. 1 - 2 ilustrations)
4. Case Reports (max. 5 pages, including references and max. 4 - 5 illustrations)
5. Announcements and Notices (for example reports from conferences and meetings, max. 1 page)

All articles are published in English.

Authors submitting a paper do so on the understanding that the work has not been published before nor has it been submitted to another scientific journal or is begin considered for publication elsewhere.

Editorial and Peer Review Process

All submitted manuscripts are reviewed initially by an Acta Medica editor. Manuscripts are evaluated according to the basic criteria of novelty, originality, impact, and validity. Manuscripts with insufficient quality for publication are rejected promptly. Other manuscripts are sent to external reviewers for peer review. Peer reviewer identities are hidden from the author, but author identities are made known to reviewers (single blind peer review process with at least two peer reviewers). After evaluation, if the article requires minor or major changes, additional rounds of peer review and revision occur until the manuscript is ready to accept. Final decisions regarding manuscript publication are made by an Acta Medica editor.

Authors are encouraged to suggest two to four potential reviewers for their work, providing their affiliation and e-mail; this will speed up the whole editing process.

Ethical standards

Animal experiments: Each animal experimentation must be performed with the permission of and under the supervision of the national/local ethics committee.

Human experiments: Work with human subjects should conform to the standards set by the Declaration of Helsinki (52nd WMA General Assembly, Edinburgh, Scotland, October 2000).

All original articles published in Acta Medica (Hradec Kralove) must contain, in the section „Material and Methods“, statements indicating that informed consent has been obtained, that studies have been performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki, and that the procedures have been approved by the local ethics committee.

Try to limit the use of abbreviations. Use generic names of drugs used.

The manuscript should be submitted in one original with one copy including all tables and illustrations along with copy on CD or a disquette. Papers can also be sent by e-mail as an attachement.

The following structure of the manuscipt and usual division of the work is required:

Title page: It should contain: a concise informative title, running title (reduced title of the article that will appear at the head of the page, not more than 50 typewritten characters including spaces), name(s) of author(s) using first the Christian name and then the surname, name(s) of department(s)/institution(s), key words (not more than 10 words using, where possible, terms from the Medical Subjects Headings list from Index Medicus) and author's contact address, phone, e-mail, and ORCID ID if possible.

Division of the manuscript:
Summary (not more than 200 words); Introduction; Material and Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusions; (Acknowledgments); References; Author's Contact Address.

Documentation:

• Tables: Tables should be numbered conssecutively with Arabic numerals and should be typed on a separate sheet. Large tables should be avoided. Mark the position of the tables in the manuscript.
• Illustrations: The only acceptable materials for printing are photos, graphs and diagrams. Color illustrations are accepted with the previous agreement of the editorial office. Illustrations can be zoomed, unzoomed, cut or edited. Illustrations should be originals and should be given in a size requested by the author. If the author does not indicate the specific size, the illustration will be reduced to the size of the page. Mark all illustrations and their placement. Do not write either the text or notes on the figures. Provide one copy of the picture with all notes, so that it will be possible to reduce the font and the size as needed. Photos and all other illustrations should be unmounted. When using collages, indicate the positions of the parts on a sheet of paper. If the illustration shows a person, it is necessary to ensure that the person cannot be identified; otherwise it is necessary to get the person's written agreement. Do not include the names of the patients or their initials or registration numbers.

References should conform to the style used in Index Medicus (Vancouver Style) as shown in the following examples (list all authors, but if the number exceeds six give the names of three authors followed by: et al.):

• Standard journal article
  You Ch, Lee KY, Chey RY, Manguy R. Electrogastrographic study of patients with unexplained nausea, bloating and vomitting. Gastroenterology. 1980; 79: 311–4.
• Journal supplement
  Magni F, Rossoni G, Berti F. BN-52021 protects guiena-pig from heart anaphylaxis. Pharmocol Res Commun. 1988; 20(suppl 5): 75–8.
• Books and other monographs
  Eisen HN. Immunology: an introduction to molecular and cellular principles of the immune response. 5th ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1974: 406.
• Chapter in a book
  Weistein L. Swatz MN. Pathogenic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA Jr, Sodeman WA, eds. Pathologic physiology: mechanisms of disease. Philadelphia: W B Saunders, 1974: 457–72.
• Dissertations or thesis
  Cairns RB. Infrared spectroscopic studies of solid oxygen (Dissertation). Berkeley, California: University of California, 1965. 156 pp.
• On-line source
  National Center for Health Statistics. Early release of selected estimates based on data from the January–June 2007 National Health Interview Study (released 12/10/2007). (Accessed April 3, 2008, at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/nhis/released200712.htm.)

Papers which have not yet been accepted for publication, and personal communications should not appear in the reference list.

Article Processing Charge

Authors do not pay any article processing charge.

Open Access Statement

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. 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, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Copyright Statement

The journal applies the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License to articles and other works we publish. If you submit your paper for publication by Acta Medica, you agree to have the CC BY license applied to your work. The journal allows the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions.

The original manuscript should be sent to the address of the Editorial Office:

Papers can also be sent by e-mail: psenickovap@lfhk.cuni.cz, actamedica@lfhk.cuni.cz