The American Journal of Medicine (AJM), also known as The Green Journal, publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in internal medicine and its subspecialties, both in academia and community-based practice. AJM is sponsored by the Association of Professors of Medicine (APM), the organization that represents the chairs of academic departments of medicine in North America. The Green Journal welcomes evidence-based, concise, well-written manuscripts that provide information that will help practicing internists improve patient care. Examples of articles published in AJM include:
– Clinical trials and cohort studies with large patient populations.
– Careful physiological or pharmacological studies that explain normal function or the body’s response to disease.
– Analytic reviews such as meta-analyses and decision analyses that use a formal structure to summarize an important field.
– Reports of patients with common presentations or diseases, especially studies that delineate the natural history of important conditions.
The first issue of AJM was published in July 1946, shortly after the conclusion of World War II. The charter editor-in-chief was Alexander B. Gutman, MD, then an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University in New York City.
In his introductory editorial, Gutman stated that the objectives of this new internal medicine journal included bringing the results of post World War II medical research to investigators and practitioners. One of the first articles dealt with serum and infectious hepatitis. Others published during that first year dealt with the then new antibiotic, penicillin, rheumatic heart disease, bronchogenic carcinoma, leukemia, peptic ulcer, migraine headache, infertility, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, infectious endocarditis (called subacute bacterial endocarditis at that time), adrenal steroid therapy, amyloidosis, glomerulonephritis, low back pain, and hyperkalemia among others.
In concert with Gutman’s original vision and objectives, each monthly issue of AJM contains a variety of regular features whose goal is to make AJM as accessible as possible for both practicing and academic internists and subspecialists. Regular features include clinically relevant, practical review articles, images of the month, office management reviews, focused and critical commentaries on published guidelines, editorials, and diagnostic puzzles. In addition, AJM publishes high quality peer-reviewed scientific articles so that both practicing and academic physicians will be apprised of the latest scientific developments.
Elsevier, the publisher of AJM, is a global company with its headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and is the largest scientific and technical publisher in the world. The current editor-in-chief is Joseph S. Alpert, M,D., professor of medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, Arizona.
