General information:

The Portuguese Journal of Surgery (PJS) publishes original works of biomedical content related to the surgery field of knowledge, with the objective of dissemination of scientific knowledge and the promotion of good medical practice.

The Journal endorses the principles set out by the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics in www.publicationethics.org) and requirements for submission of papers in biomedical journals developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.ICMJE.org).

The editorial policy incorporates the Editorial Policy Statements issued by the Council of Science Editors, on the responsibility and rights of editors of peer-reviewed journals. (www.councilscienceeditors.org)

All manuscripts submitted for publication are subject to double blind peer review, by external reviewers to the editorial board, except in the cases identified in these Rules.

In the evaluation of submitted manuscripts, the editor will follow the recommendations published by the Equator Network (www.equator-network.org), urging the authors to consult the checklist in accordance to the type work to publish.

The journal is published quarterly, exclusively online from number 30.

It is published in accordance with the principles of free access. (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-recommendations)

Editor and Property:

The PJS is published and owned by the Portuguese Society of Surgery (Sociedade Portuguesa de Cirurgia).

Affiliated Societies:

Official Organ of the Portuguese Society of Surgery (Sociedade Portuguesa de Cirurgia).

Publishing Languages:

The PJS publishes articles written in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.

All manuscripts are published with the title, abstract and keywords in English.

Authorship Criteria

The PJS endorses the "ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals" (www.ICMJE.org).

Attribution of authorship implies the satisfaction of four conditions:

1. Have direct substantial intellectual contribution in the design and drafting of the article.

2. Participate in the analysis and interpretation of data.

3. Participate actively in the writing of the manuscript, reviewing the drafts, in the critical content review, or approval of the final version.

4. Authors agree that are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the work.

All those who contributed to the paper but whose participation does not meet the conditions set out above, will be referenced in the "Acknowledgements" section.

Be presented as author not meeting these criteria is considered bad practice.

For greater transparency, it should be submitted according to the “Statement of Authorship and Conflict of Interest”, where it must be specified the contribution of each author to the manuscript and it shall be signed by all authors

Conflicts of Interest

All content published, including the opinions expressed, are sole responsibility of the authors, which should reveal at time of submission, the existence of conflicts of interest in the "Declaration of Authorship and Conflicts of Interest". This information will be kept confidential during revision of the manuscript and will not influence the editorial decision, but will be published if the manuscript is accepted for publication.

In case of doubts regarding what constitutes a conflict of interest, the authors must contact the Editor in Chief (editorchefe@spcir.com).

Copyright

The authors must submit a form signed with the transfer of copyright to the Portuguese Journal of Surgery / Portuguese Society of Surgery, binding the Portuguese Journal of Surgery / Portuguese Society of Surgery from the moment of acceptance for publication.

If the manuscript contains extracts (including illustrations) from, or based in the whole or in part on other copyrighted works, it is responsibility of the authors to obtain written permission from copyright owners to reproduce it in all territories, issues and all means of expression and languages. All consent forms must be provided the editors when submitting the article.

The Portuguese Journal of Surgery publishes by the license terms of Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - (by-nc-nd)." Information available at: (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

The Portuguese Journal of Surgery reserves the right to commercialize the manuscript.

Informed consent and ethical approval

The publication of photographs, videos or written descriptions of patients implies that the authors submit an informed consent document signed by the patient or his/hers legal representative.

Authors should explicitly report that the research work was approved by the Institution Ethics Committee according to the Helsinki Declaration (see in www.wma.net) and report it in the material and methods section.

Self-archiving policy

After publication, the authors are allowed to offer their manuscripts in institutional repositories as long as is mentioned the original publication and using the originally published PDF file.

Editorial process

Style

Manuscripts should be written according to the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals". (http://www.icmje.org/about-icmje/faqs/icmje-recommendations/)

The Editor reserves the right to make changes to the text provided that it does not distort the contents, but only to adjust the writing style to publication standards.

Submission

Manuscripts are to be submitted online, by authors registered in the Portuguese Journal of Surgery site in http://revista.spcir.com/index.php/spcir/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions.

All fields on the online submission form should be filled in.

For disambiguation of the author's name, the use of ORCID identifier for each author is suggested, which may be obtained in http://orcid.org.

At the moment of submission, one of the authors is to be defined as "Corresponding Author", the one who, on behalf of all co-authors, centralizes the contacts for the submission and review process, being responsible to ensure that all the requirements for publication the manuscript are met. The corresponding author contact will be published in the manuscript.

The manuscript must be submitted in an editable format (.doc, .docx, .rtf).

Very extensive material to be published with the article, namely extensive tables or data collection instruments may be published and referenced as supplemental material.

The manuscript should follow the structure:

On the first page:

Title in the language of publication and in English.
Name of all authors (first and last name) with academic and / or professional title and their affiliation (department, institution, city, country).
Email address of each author.
Funding contributing to the realization of the work.
Address and e-mail of the Corresponding Author.

On the second page:

Title in the language of publication and in English.
Abstract in the language of publication and in English.
A maximum of, 5 using the terminology contained in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html.

In the following pages:

Remaining manuscript text, considering also the type and the journal section where it will be published.

Sections and Types of Manuscripts

Agenda

In this section, will be published a schedule of events that by is technical and scientific nature were considered relevant.

Opinion

In this section will be published manuscripts regarding author’s opinions and points of views on medical education, ethics and other subjects considered relevant. The manuscript must be structured with Abstract and Keywords in Portuguese and English and should not exceed 2500 words, 2 images and 5 references. Will not be subjected to peer review and its acceptance for publication is under the exclusive competence of the Editor in Chief.

Reviews

The editors encourage the submission of reviewing manuscripts and meta-analyses on topics of interest. The text should not exceed 5000 words, 5 images and 25 references.
Editors may request directly reviewing manuscripts, which may not be subjected to peer review. In that case the acceptance for publication is under the exclusive competence of the Editor in Chief.

Special Dossier

In this section will be published manuscripts focusing on a theme by invitation of the Editor in Chief. The text should not exceed 5000 words, 5 images and 25 references. Will not be subjected to peer review and its acceptance for publication is under the exclusive competence of the Editor in Chief.

Clinical cases

In this section will be published case reports, constituting unusual forms of presentation, particularly didactic or rare situations. The text should not exceed 1800 words, 4 images and 15 references. The text will be submitted to peer review.

Controversies

Will publish work related to subjects where there is no consensus and where there is opposite or markedly different positions. The Editors may invite authors to submit manuscripts defending opposite views. The text should not exceed 2500 words, 2 images, and 10 references.

Editorials

Editorials are only submitted by invitation, relating to current issues, or important subjects published in the current issue of the Journal. They will not be subjected to peer review. The text doesn’t have abstract or keywords and should not exceed 1800 words with no more than 5 references.

Errata and retractions

In this section all changes or retractions to manuscript previously published will be published whose errors have been detected after publication.

History and Careers

In this section will be published original articles relating to facts and relevant historical figures in surgery in Portugal and the World. The text may not exceed 5000 words and 25 references. The text will be submitted to peer review.

Images for Surgeons

This section is intended for publication of images (clinical, radiological, histological, surgical) related to surgical cases. Maximum number of figures and tables will be 3. The images should be of very good technical quality and educational value. The text that will accompany the images should be limited to 250 words. The manuscript will be submitted to peer review.

Guidelines

In this section will be published recommendations for clinical practice, preferably from groups or reference entities in clinical areas.

Technical steps

Articles focused on surgical technique or related to surgical procedures in which the authors present and describe particular aspects of it with interest for its innovation, results and reproducibility. Limited to 5,000 words and 25 references. Unlimited illustrations, and the final selection criteria determined by the Editor in Chief.

Fundamental texts

Texts that by their scientific importance, are considered by the Chief Editor as relevant to basic knowledge in the field of surgery.

Abstracts

In this section abstracts presentations will be published from meetings of the Portuguese Society of Surgery or affiliated entities. Abstracts have peer review.