About Journal

The Section of General Medicine of the Serbian Medical Society is the founder, owner, and publisher of the Journal Opsta medicina.

The Journal is into the articles from the sphere of general medicine and other medical disciplines which might be of interest to General/Family medicine. It was founded in 1995 and its number is 1942. It was signed in the Media register with the permission of the Ministry of information of the Republic of Serbia under the number 632-498/95-03, May 5th, 1995. On June 12th, 1996, the Ministry of science and technology of the Republic of Serbia declared the Journal Opsta medicina the publication of special interest for science (number 413-00-338/96-01). The first editor-in-chief was prim. Dane Zigic, MD, GP, scientific adviser and he stayed there until 3-4 issue of the Journal in 2006. Prim. Dejan Konstantinovic, MD, GP was editor- in- chief  since 2007 (issue 1-2) to 2008 (issue 1-2). Prim. Suzana Stankovic, MD, GP, Ph.D. has been editor-in-chief since 2008 (issue 3-4).

The Journal was published in paper form until 2016 (issue 1-2), Since 2016 (issue 3-4), the Journal is published only in electronic form, twice a year. From June 2017 it is indexed in DOAJ.

Journal Opsta medicina publishes only original articles that were not previously published elsewhere:

  • Original scientific (expert) articles – first time published results of one`s own research
  • Statements – full formate original scientific articles, but in a lesser scope
  • Reviews – original, detailed, critical presentation of the research problem or area in which an author already made an impact, presented as auto citations
  • Case reports
  • Scientific critic, debate on a certain topic based on scientific argumentation, up to date topics: current topics of theoretical and practical importance for the profession
  • Exceptions: monograph studies, historical-archival, lexicographical, bibliographical studies or reviews, under the condition of being in the form of summed up data publicly unavailable before.

Journal Opsta medicina uses double-blind peer reviews of all articles. It is an open-access journal. Articles are published according to license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search full text, create HTML links to the articles as well, without previous authorization of the author or publisher. In case of resolving ethical disputes, the Editorial board uses COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines. The Journal follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) http://www.icmje.org/.   

 

Editorial Office

Department of General Medicine of Serbian Medical Society 11000 Beograd,
Džordža Vašingtona 19
Tel  +381 66 5598422; +381 11 3234 450d
 
 
 

Foreword

May, 2021.
 

Dear colleagues,

The whole world is fighting the COVID-19 virus, at the moment, and the desire for scientific research isn`t lacking.

The `General Practice` journal is published twice a year, in the spring and the autumn, and it enables physicians and their associates to publish their best works and valuable research results. By producing their papers, the authors can solve the problems, affirm themselves as scientific researchers and promote their medical discipline.

Here is a new edition of the journal, which has been continuously published since 1995. It was initiated by Dejan Konstantinovic, MD. The first Editor-in-Chief, from the first issue up until 2006, was prim. Dane Zigic, MD, GP, Ph.D. From 2007-2008 the Editor-in-Chief was Dejan Konstantinovic, MD, and from 2008-2021 prim.Suzana Stankovic, MD, GP, Ph.D. From the very first issue up until 2016 the journal was printed in paper form, and after that as an e-form. The Ministry of Science placed it in the K52 category in 2020. The journal is indexed with the DOAJ list (Open access).

Our continuous aim is to improve `General Practice`s prestige, in the field of the quality of papers and authors` reputation. We also aim to increase its visibility through indexation in a prestigious database SCOPUS.

In the time ahead of us, no matter the circumstances, we`ll have to make an additional effort to increase the value of our journal by accepting and publishing high-quality scientific papers with topics of interest and a tendency to be quoted by other authors.

The journal`s editorial policy is not locally-oriented but exclusively based on the scientific quality of the author`s papers, no matter where they come from.

The new Editorial Board of the journal pays its deepest respect to all the authors and reviewers, who despite the  current epidemiological situation and difficult working conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, dedicated their time to scientific work, writing, reviewing, and reading the papers. The reasons for paper rejection were usually dissonance with the journal`s technical requests, or the contents were overriding the topic frame, or they received negative comments from the reviewers.

The Editorial Board calls for co-operation with general physicians and their associates, physicians involved in PHC, and other fields of medicine, as well. We kindly ask all interested members of the academic community, especially those from the field of general or family medicine, to help us in our efforts, by submitting their papers and spreading the good word to their colleagues.

 
Editor-in-Chief,
Marina Fisekovic Kremic, Ph. D., GP, MD

October the 1st, 2020.

Dear colleagues,

The Editorial Board of the General practice journal pays its greatest respect to all the general physicians, who despite the Martial law and grave working conditions, due to COVID 19 pandemic, found the time to do the scientific research, write, peer-review, and read scientific papers. Our greatest pleasure is the continuity in our journal publishing. We owe it to our team of the closest associates, the President of the Section of General Medicine, and the Scientific Board. Our special thanks to our peer-reviewers and copy editors for all their hard work, constructive and critical comments, expert opinions, and instructions for the authors. They were of great help to alleviate the quality level of the published papers. Last, but not the least, we owe our gratitude to all the authors who helped us keep the enviable level of quality of our journal, and of course, to all our readers. 

Thanks to the Editorial Boards` efforts, some changes were made to enhance the journal`s quality, themes relevance, and the choice of new expert peer-reviewers. Also, our new and redesigned website, now available in Serbian and in English, got praise from our readers. It`s regularly updated and there are e-copies of all the journals` editions, starting from the first published edition in 1995. All the articles have got free full access and it`s such a treasure for all our readers.  

We aim at continuous improvement of the journal`s prestige in the sphere of the quality of papers, as well as the author`s reputation. This might be achieved with competent and thorough peer-reviews of our reviewers and commissioning expert reviewers from abroad. Therefore, since volume 25, we decided all our peer-reviewed and accepted papers would be published in the Serbian and English language. The General Medicine journal reflects the state of medicine in Serbia, but it is quite open for the authors from the region and all over the world. It is our deepest belief that science development is not possible without the free idea exchange, disregarding state and national boundaries and language barriers. We consider publishing our papers in English as an acceptance of the higher standards in scientific production.

The Editorial Board firmly believes in the importance of the supreme, competent, and thorough peer review in ensuring the journal`s high quality. Therefore, as an Editor-in-Chief and in front of the Editorial Board, I kindly invite all the renowned scientists from our country and abroad, with an undeniable competence, to join us as peer-reviewers, authors, and readers.

Our future goals include published papers` quality improvement, to motivate our colleagues who have never dipped their toes into scientific research to try it, but also to connect and cooperate with other journals. We also aim at being included in reference databases.

Our goal is to enable adequate presentation and affirmation of the scientific work of the authors from the primary health care level, as well as related medical branches. Recently we became active on social networks, and we update our followers on the activities concerning the journal.

The editorial Board is exclusively oriented towards papers` scientific quality and cooperation with authors from or country, region, and the world. We truly believe this edition before you, topic choice, papers` quality, and affiliation of the authors confirm our beliefs. We kindly ask all the interested members of the academic community, especially those from the field of general and family medicine, as well as those from the related fields, to help us in our efforts by sending quality papers, expert peer-reviews, and recommending our journal to other colleagues.

Editor-in-Chief,
Prim. Susana Stankovic, Ph.D., GP, MD

Dear colleagues,

We present you with the new issue of the journal “General practice” that`s being published uninterruptedly since 1995. This is our 25th jubilee year and we are proud of its contribution to the scientific community. The initiative came from prim. Dejan Konstantinovic, MD, GP and he gave it his all to make this happen. The founder and the first editor- in-chief was prim. Dane Zigic, MD, GP, Ph.D. With the help of his closest associates, prim. Dragoljub Ivankovic, MD. GP, MSc and prim. Dejan Konstantinovic, MD, GP, as well as the members of the Presidency and Scientific board of the Section of general medicine of the Serbian medical society, they summoned a meeting in County outpatients` hospital “Novi Beograd” in January 1995. That`s when the journal “Opsta medicina” / “General practice” was founded.

The first editor- in- chief was prim. Dane Zigic, MD, GP, Ph.D. and he stayed there until 2006. That same year, Ministry of information of the Republic of Serbia issued a resolution, by which the journal was registered with the Media register. In April 1996, Ministry of science and technology issued the statement that the journal “General practice” was the publication of special interest for the scientific public. During 2007-2008 the editor-in-chief was prim. Dejan Konstantinovic, MD, and ever since 2008 prim. Suzana Stankovic, MD, Ph.D.

The journal is registered as the scientific journal in the Repository of the National Library of Serbia and CEON. The Ministry of science and technology classified it as K52 category in 2018 and it`s published twice a year. The members of the editorial board submitted the journal for the DOAJ (Directory of open accsess journals) and it`s been accepted.

DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.

Our permanent goal is for the journal to maintain its prestige, improve the quality of published works and authors` credits, but at the same time we would like it to be more visible through indexing in the prestigious database SCOPUS. Thus, “General practice” would be included in the worldrenowned scientific journals database.

From 1995-2016, the journal was published in paper form, and since 2016 in electronic form. Thanks to prim. Slavoljub Zivanovic, MD, spec. in emergency medicine, all the paper issues of the journal were also put in electronic form and can be found on the journal`s website. It is a true treasure for the readers to be able to browse all the published journal issues, since its beginning, on the web.

The Editorial board is oriented towards the scientific quality of the works and cooperation with authors from our country, region, but also from all over the world. We are confident that the current issue, with its topics choice, quality of works and authors` affiliation will live up to your expectations. We heartily invite all the interested authors, especially from the general and family medicine field, as well as the related fields, to help us in our efforts by submitting quality works, reviews and kindly recommend our journal to their colleagues.

We`d like to thank all the authors who submitted their works in this issue of our journal, as well as reviewers and lectors for their hard work, constructive and critical comments, suggestions and instructions for the authors. All of them made an enormous contribution to enhance the quality of the published works.

And finally, we`d like to quote the ever present words of our first editor-in-chief`s, prim. Dane Zigic, MD, GP, Ph.D. first journal foreword (1995):

“One`s knowledge is updated by one`s research of his practice. Research and publication is not only the way to satisfy the constructive restlessness of the curious but an ethical obligation of the professional

Editor in-chief
Prim. Suzana Stankovic, MD, PhD