Papers published in Nature that changed the way we treat patients.
Edoardo Cervoni
Wednesday, 17 October 2007 14:17 UTC
Dear Editor, I found very interesting the BMJ issue dedicated to the discoveries that changed the way we practice Medicine. I may be wrong, but none of them was obviously linked to papers published in Nature. Am I wrong? If I’m not, why do you think this is the case and how do you think Nature could do better?
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Replies
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Nature is not a clinical or applied-science journal, but a journal of the basic sciences. So when we decide what to publish, we are looking for papers that take forward our scientific understanding.
That having been said, many Nature papers have been fundamental to subsequent medical advances: monoclonal antibodies to name but one, but there are hundreds, probably thousands. The advancement of scientific understanding leads in many constructive directions for society, including medical advances but not limited to those.
As you probably know, Nature Publishing Group also publishes journals more directly relevant to clinical and medical research, for example Nature Medicine and the Nature Clinical Practice journals.
A small point is that a correlation does not imply causation. If you read an article somewhere that does not reference an article somewhere else, you cannot deduce from that that the second journal should “do better” ;-) There are plenty of other interpretations that could be put on it. -
Just a FYI, here are links to Nature Medicine and the Nature Clinical Practice journals (all 8 titles!) that Maxine was referring to.
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As a reader of Nature, I have read many interesting articles that will bring forth advances in medicine. For instance, my wife had Interstitial cystitis for which there was no cure. However, my understanding of GPR lead me to try a g-agonist for treatment. After 9 months of treatment and 6 years later my wife is still asysptomatic while current clinical medicine is still puzzle.
Sincerely,
Norman A. Smith
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