Medical students, University Libraries team up to publish College of Medicine research

Medical students from Penn State College of Medicine edited and published the first issue of a peer-reviewed journal showcasing the research of their peers. Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing unit supports the journal, the mission of which is to publish clinical and medical-based research completed by students enrolled at the College of Medicine.

“We wanted to create an avenue for students to publish peer-reviewed scientific works and, at the same time, develop an environment where our student population can learn firsthand about peer-reviewed clinical research,” said Adeel Ahmad, one of four College of Medicine students who served as founding editors.

Penn State Journal of Medicine is the first medical student-run journal published by the College of Medicine. Ira Ropson, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and assistant dean for medical student research, is advisor for the project. Students hope it will be an opportunity to learn from their peers.

“In the first issue alone, we learned about topics ranging from rare neurological disorders to aspects of residency training,” said Anuj Mehta, one of the founding student editors. “It’s the reason we created this journal in the first place – we wanted to hear what our peers were working on.”

The journal is open access, meaning it is freely available under a Creative Commons license.

“We’re proud to support such an important publication, and especially proud to publish it open-access,” said Ally Laird, open publishing program coordinator at the University Libraries. “We look forward to seeing its impact on medicine and on students at the College of Medicine.”

Read the full story on Penn State News

Read student perspectives on the creation of the journal

View published research in the Penn State Journal of Medicine

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