The Artemis

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Mission

The Artemis is the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Association for PAs in Obstetrics and Gynecology (APAOG). Its mission is to support the advancement of PAs by publishing current information and research on clinical, health policy, and professional issues for PAs in obstetrics, gynecology, sexual, and reproductive health subspecialties across the lifespan. We honor the variation of expression of gender and sex across the spectrum and will continue to create an inclusive space. 

The Artemis is available on our APAOG website, which also features webinars, podcasts and links to a range of online resources useful to OBGYN PAs. Also available are instructions for authors and peer reviewers. The Artemis is published quarterly, with content posted to our website. 

​Information for Authors

Authors with potential conflicts of interest:

Please note that Artemis does not consider for publication within the journal any articles with industry or medical education company involvement or sponsorship. Authors may have relationships to industry (which must be disclosed), but the manuscript itself must be independent of those relationships: written by the author without industry or medical education company planning, oversight, editing, review, financial support, or approval. 

Authorship

The Artemis uses ICMJE standards as the source for its definition of authorship. Each author should significantly contribute to the article's conception, planning, organization, and/or design, literature search and/or critical analysis of the literature, and developing the manuscript. For original research, the author must acquire, analyze, and/or interpret data.

Special Instructions for PA Students

All student authors must have a coauthor who is a faculty mentor, a practicing clinician, or both. The coauthor does not have to do any of the research or write any portion of the manuscript, but this person should provide mentorship and review during article development

Types of articles published: 

1. Op-ed or Letter to the Editor (300 words): Written in response to articles published. Authors of the published article will be given the opportunity to respond to the letter. Limit letters to 300 words (including references) and no more than 5 references. Letters will be edited for clarity, style, and length as appropriate. All letters must include the writer's full name and degrees, work affiliations, city, state, and e-mail address. 

2. The PA Perspective (1,500 to 2,000 words): Share your experience and responsibilities in your particular specialty and include any identified barriers to practice and potential improvements.

3. Wholy Inclusive (1,500 to 2,000 words): Our aim is to increase cultural competence, discuss “old-wives tales” and tackle issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

4. Clinical Pearls (1,500 to 2,000 words): Didactic and clinical training can only teach so much. Is there something you wish you would have learned prior to practice or a pearl you have learned over the years that can be useful to other PAs. We encourage you to share with our community.

5. En Caul (500 to 1,500 words): The symbolism of a fetus born in the amniotic sac captures the essence of our purpose and ‘calling’ to work in female medicine. It's an uncommon phenomenon but one full of potential. We encourage our members to share their reason for practicing in their specialty.

6. Original Research (2.000 to 3,500): Original research should be original research conducted by the author(s). Artemis welcomes original research on workforce and related topics that are of particular relevance to practicing OBGYN PAs. Submissions include smaller studies and pilot trials addressing the quality of care delivered by PAs, assess PA-directed care, provide models for enhancing productivity within clinics or hospitals, describe innovative ways to enhance PA performance, or explore PA demographics. If your research involves a survey, your submission must include the original survey instrument as part of the submission. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (www.icmje.org).

Original Research Format

Abstract: Structure with subheadings: Objective(s), Methods, Results, Conclusions. Limit your abstract to 150 words. Include up to five key words at the end of the abstract.

Introduction: Less than 500 words in a 3-paragraph structure. Your first paragraph should set the stage for the study by briefly describing the background for the circumstance surrounding the investigation. In the second paragraph, describe why your study is important, what implications it has for PA practice, and how it relates to the material in the first paragraph. In your third paragraph, state what you hope to achieve.

Methods: Describe the design of your study. This link provides some standard vocabulary and definitions: http://jama.ama-assn.org/misc/auinst_term.dtl. Select the one that most accurately describes your study. Describe the study participants and how they were chosen. If you conducted a survey, please describe the underlying frame from which your sample was chosen and your response rate. Please clearly state the outcome of interest and how it was measured. Inform your readers of your explanatory variables and how you hypothesize they are related to your outcome.

Describe your data analysis in detail. Your analytic strategy should demonstrate your familiarity with basic biostatistical methods for continuous and categorical data. These methods include, but are not limited to, measures of central tendency and variability (mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation, standard error) as well as measures of association (chi square statistic, correlation coefficients, rate differences, relative rates, odds ratios). If you are not comfortable with the statistical aspects of your study, you are strongly encouraged to include a coauthor who is. In general, confidence intervals are to be preferred over simple P values. Please note that surveys using all but the most straightforward simple random samples will require statistical techniques, such as those found in SUDAAN software, to account for complex design factors.

Results: Results should be presented to reflect the methods section. Where possible, confidence intervals in the original clinical metric of interest are much preferred over P values. For example, rather than state: "Patients lived longer under PA care (P <0.0001)," it is much more informative and appropriate to say: "Patients lived 2 hours longer under PA care (95% CI, 1.9-2.1 hours)." In this way, the reader can better evaluate the clinical importance of your results.

Do not repeat results presented in graphs and tables. Please create and label all tables and graphs so that they are self-explanatory and could stand alone without reference to the text.

Discussion: Relate your results to the extant literature. Note that our readers are clinically practicing PAs. Statistical significance is much less important or relevant to them than is clinical importance. 

Limitations: Clearly and succinctly state both the potential limitations of your study and their implications for your conclusions. If, for example, your response rate was low, how would you expect that to affect your results?

Conclusions: This should be a brief, at most 1-paragraph statement. Please be as explicit as possible. If, for example, you suggest more research is needed, please state precisely what the next step should be.

Acknowledgements: All studies involving human data require a statement of institutional review board approval or exemption. It is the author's responsibility to ensure that all funding sources, including proprietary and for-profit entities such as pharmaceutical companies as well as not-for-profit and government funding sources, are listed in this section.

Authors must provide high-resolution digital image files of the imaging studies discussed in the article. 

Tips and Tricks

References should emphasize what is practical, current, and evidence-based. 

Cite recent sources. If you are citing a paper that was published more than 5 years ago, the paper should be either one of a kind (a seminal study) or the only source for the data you are citing. If neither of these is the case, you probably either do not need to cite a source at all, or you need to find a more recent one.

Epidemiologic data should be absolutely current. Please look for the most recent information available.

Cite primary sources whenever possible since these carry the most weight. The primary source is the place where the information was first published. 

Cite peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed primary source information appears in such journals, giving them more credibility than textbooks and medical websites that provide generic reviews.

All direct quotes—including those from government sources, online publications, and publications that are in the public domain—must be presented as such, with quotation marks and appropriate citations. 

Multiple references are not required in most cases. Usually, you can cite the most recent reference, the most respected reference, or the primary reference and let it go at that. 

Do not reference statements that most clinicians would consider common knowledge. Many citations from textbooks fall into this category.

Do reference all statements that cite data or studies. If your sentence has numbers, the source of the numbers must be referenced.

Do reference statements that your readers may find controversial.

Do reference anything that is someone else's thoughts, data, or conclusions.

Number references sequentially in the text using superscript Arabic numbers. If a reference is cited more than once, it should always have the number assigned to it at its first occurrence. Type references at the end of the text in numeric sequence using the form prescribed in the AMA Manual of Style or the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Use the abbreviations for journal titles provided on PubMed. Note that submissions using APA style will not be accepted.

References. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of their references and for correct text citation. For editing purposes, manuscripts with references must be formatted using the form prescribed in the AMA Manual of Style or the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. Use the abbreviations for journal titles provided on PubMed. Note that submissions using APA style will not be accepted.

Any online citations must include the URL and latest date the author accessed the page to verify its currency.

Do not use word processing options that automatically number references or embed information in a footnote or endnote. When you key in references at the end of the text, please number them manually. 

Save the hard copies of your references after submission. If your article is accepted, we will ask you to send the hard copies to us for use during editing and fact-checking. Also the reference must contain the complete publication information: authors, titles, year of publication, volume and issue number, inclusive page numbers, city/state of publication and publisher (in the case of books), etc.

Tables, Figures, Illustrations, and Photos. Legends must accompany all tables and figures. Authors should indicate whether illustrations are original works or copies. Authors must obtain copyright releases for reprinting any previously published material. Copyright permission may also be necessary for any adaptations of previously published material, including tables which have been adapted from other sources. For more information on copyright visit www.copyright.gov/help/faq.

Photographs must be accompanied by written permission of any individuals pictured in the photo, unless the image is historic or considered a public photo. Photograph releases from individuals in the photo should include permission to use the photo in print and online versions of the journal and all media forms. Do not embed photos or figures in word processing documents; they must be attached as separate files (JPGS or TIFFs) to your submission through Editorial Manager.

Figures

A) Creating Digital Artwork

B) Digital Artwork Guideline Checklist

Here are the basics to have in place before submitting your digital artwork:

• Artwork should be saved as TIFF, EPS, or MS Office (DOC, PPT, XLS) files. High resolution PDF files are also acceptable.

• Crop out any white or black space surrounding the image.

• Diagrams, drawings, graphs, and other line art must be vector or saved at a resolution of at least 1200 dpi. If created in an MS Office program, send the native (DOC, PPT, XLS) file.

• Photographs, radiographs, and other halftone images must be saved at a resolution of at least 300 dpi.

• Photographs and radiographs with text must be saved as postscript or at a resolution of at least 600 dpi.

• Each figure must be saved and submitted as a separate file. Figures should not be embedded in the manuscript text file.

Borrowing material from another source: Authors should clarify the copyright status for every item in their manuscript that is not part of the main text. ("Every item" means all tables, graphs, algorithms, photos, imaging studies, ECGs, etc.) Authors must obtain copyright releases for reprinting any previously published material.

Technical Tips for Manuscript Preparation:

• Do not place borders or section breaks in the manuscript or use other types of formatting or stationery that may be difficult to remove or may otherwise make editing difficult.
  

• Create all text, charts, graphs in Microsoft Word so that it can be edited. Do not submit any text in PDF format. Do not use Excel or any other spreadsheet application. 

• Provide appropriate headings and subheadings throughout the text that will clarify the organization of information for the reader. 

• Expand all acronyms on first mention. Example: white blood cells (WBCs).

• Provide units of measure for all laboratory values or other clinical measures that are expressed in number form. 

• Refer to drugs using their generic names. 

• Cite every table, figure, or other accessory item at an appropriate place in the text. 

• Place figures, tables, algorithms, and other accessory material at the end of the file (or in a separate file), and number them consecutively in order of their appearance in the text. Do not embed this material in the body of the text.

What Happens Next: After You Have Submitted Your Manuscript

After an article has been submitted, it is screened by volunteer leaders.

In most cases, articles that pass the preliminary screening are sent to at least two peer reviewers, who determine whether the manuscript will be accepted, rejected, or recommended for revision. Author names are not removed from the manuscript before peer review. 

Articles are scheduled for publication after acceptance. 

Conflicts of interest: Authors must state all possible conflicts of interest on the title page of the manuscript, including financial, consultant, institutional and other relationships that might lead to bias or a conflict of interest. If there is no conflict of interest, this should also be explicitly stated as none declared. All sources of funding should be acknowledged in the manuscript. All relevant conflicts of interest and sources of funding should be included on the title page of the manuscript with the heading “Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding.