MJoTA is always ready to accept your medical journal article. In July and August 2008 MJoTA is changing its look: articles are being posted on this site (mjota.org), on the publishing company site (ustawi.com) and on the site of the non-profit umbrella organization (kdnc.org). Articles in pdf format will continue to be posted on the mjota.org site; these articles in html format will be published on the Ustawi.com site. The mjota.org site will include all articles ever published by MJoTA.
Send your articles, press releases, information about conferences connected with health and development in Africa, photographs to:
ustawi@kdnc.org.
|
Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa accepts for publication any article that is of interest to pharmaceutical industry professionals in the US and Africa.
MJoTA publishes health data in 3 formats:
1. the magazine section, target audience well-educated non-science-trained professionals
2. the medical journal article section, target audience well-educated science-trained professionals
3. MJoTA Movies, directed at general audiences.
You can see the first movie on malaria, "Malaria: A Prventabkle Disease" on YouTube, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18UH-bvMWpc&feature=related
All magazine and data articles are reviewed by Editorial Board members and other ad hoc reviewers. |
 |
| MJoTA Sep 2007 Liver Diseases |
|
|
Download all issues as pdfs, MJoTA Issue 1, Focus on Malaria; MJoTA Issue 2, Focus on HIV/AIDS; MJoTA Issue 3, Focus on Liver Diseases, MJoTA Vol2 No1, Focus on TB.
Send link or pdf to everyone you know who wants African kids to grow up healthy. Which is the point of encouraging regulated pharmaceutical industries in the United States, and in Africa. If you or someone you know cannot access the journal from links or pdfs, and you can finance printed, bound, high-quality paper copies or CDs, contact the Publishers. Pricing depends on volume of copies.
The Publisher of Record for MJoTA in the US Copyright Office is Emerald Pademelon Press LLC, which has assigned copyright for all 2007 and 2008 issues to Biomedical Writing Programs Publishing Board of University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, contact sjdodgsonphd@yahoo.com.
The copyright to individual articles belong to the person who wrote them. If you want to reproduce or copy any article, you need to obtain the permission from the person who wrote the article. |
In September 2001 I was hired by a medical communications company to work on HIV/AIDS for a multinational pharmaceutical company. I was hired partly because I am a medical writer with a PhD in physiology, but mainly because I was willing to fly anywhere at a time when few would. And fly I did, in early October I spent 3 days in Santa Barbara at a physician education meeting in a beach hotel used for celebrity weddings. By late October I was in Athens, and in July 2002 I was in Barcelona for the XIV International AIDS Conference.
My job in Barcelona was to write reports on ancillary 2 hour seminar meetings sponsored by drug companies; the usual format was a really good dinner plus 3 healthcare professionals talking about a pharmaceutical company’s drug or concerns around prescribing the drug. In Barcelona these meetings were followed by wines and tapas. Except one, where everyone was bused to a castle on the harbor for a banquet and to watch fire-eaters, acrobats making a huge human pyramid and huge characters walking around on stilts. I started chatting with the lady next to me, who identified herself as a Zimbabwean Red Cross worker. She was in awe of the opulence of the evening, and the antiretroviral drugs that had been described throughout the conference, and she told me that often her patients had for therapy only “roots and leaves”, none of the miracle drugs that the international pharmacuetical companies were lavishly marketing.
Many professionals inside and outside Africa are however trying to bring antiretroviral therapies to every human in need in Africa, as well as therapies to treat the other major killers in Africa, malaria and tuberculosis, and other diseases endemic in Africa. And trying so hard to prevent infection, treat infected humans and take care of orphans when the fight is lost. These professionals are in Africa in governments, universities, and indigenous pharmaceutical companies, and everywhere else, in small and large philanthropic companies, international pharmaceutical companies, individuals, government organizations, non government organizations and United Nations organizations. At the Barcelona meeting the enormous efforts of individuals and organizations were in evidence, and they are in evidence to the staff of Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa (MJoTA).
MJoTA is a new journal published by the USP graduate Biomedical Writing Programs to celebrate the efforts of the African indigenous pharmaceutical industry, and US philanthropic efforts in Africa which have the goal of wanting every African child to grow up healthy and educated. Our concern is to publish articles on attempts and on successes, on descriptions of developing, marketing, and manufacturing drugs, vaccines and devices that prevent and treat disease. Most African countries have sophisticated systems of education but lack the infrastructure to support their own educated professionals. This lack has fueled the decade-long migration of pharmaceutical industry and healthcare professionals from sub-Saharan Africa.
This migration of Africans to the United States has resulted in communities settling around Philadelphia and starting businesses, resuming professional careers or retraining. I became aware of African communities in Philadelphia when I became Director of the Biomedical Writing Programs in 2004, first, because I have always had one or two Nigerian students enrolled, and second, because the businesses along Baltimore Avenue close to USP are predominantly African. In August 2006 I started seeking out African churches in Philadelphia, with the idea of networking with African professionals living in the US. I went to the Ghanaian United Presbyterian Church in North Philadelphia and then to an indigenous Nigerian church, Christ Apostolic Church down Baltimore Avenue about a mile from USP at 58th Street. I have been warmly welcomed in this church and my efforts with MJoTA greatly encouraged, and now I enthusiastically dance and worship for several hours at CAC services every Sunday from 11am.
During my search for Africa that took me to my new church, I met a CAC pastor with a long career in Nigeria in broadcasting who has run a video production studio in his decade in the US. Pastor Osagie Edoro-Ighalo has also made pharmaceutical industry advertisements, and in a generous gesture, offered to make a short documentary that we could use to advertise our new journal. As a first step in this process, Pastor Edoro came on campus in November and filmed a class in which the goals and requirements of Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa were discussed.
Our first issue of MJoTA was published as a pdf on January 15, 2007, on Martin Luther King Day. Our journal is published every 4 months, and each issue has a focus. Malaria was the focus of the first issue, HIV/AIDS issue 2 (15May2007), liver diseases issue 3 (15Sep2007) and tuberculosis issue 4 (15Jan2008). Articles are all peer-reviewed by members of the Editorial Board, and managing editors.
Most articles in issue 1 were written by students in a required Biomedical Writing Master of Science class in which they write and edit a magazine article and a medical data article, other articles came from faculty and students in other classes. We additionally welcome articles from our own graduates and other pharmaceutical industry professional everywhere. Submissions should be sent to me at sjdodgsonphd@yahoo.com. We are always looking for photographs, which in issue 1 resulted from networking efforts from students Donna Proszynski RN of Pennsylvania and Carrie Schmitt, of Ohio.
I always knew medical writers were compassionate, with most involved in volunteer activities outside class and work in the pharmaceutical industry. MJoTA will always be a volunteer medical journal, but we are hoping as we grow we will be able to garner funds to send our editors to Africa for interviews and stories for our magazine section. And to report on areas where humans with acute and chronic illness thrive because they have access to ethical life-saving therapies which may or may not be made from roots and leaves.
Susanna J Dodgson BSc (Hons), PhD (Univ New South Wales)
Office phone: 856-795-2359
Cellular phone: 609-792-1571 (text messaging enabled)
E-mail: sjdodgsonphd@yahoo.com
|
|
|
