Editorial Board Screening Criteria for Sending a Manuscript to Peer Review (Desk Review)

Effective January 15, 2026

Manuscripts not meeting the following criteria will be desk rejected

 Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal takes its role in disseminating reliable medical scholarship seriously.

1: Adherence to Instructions for Authors and Forms Submission

Manuscripts NOT complying with the Instructions for Authors (e.g., style, text format, format of references, title page placement, submission of ALL mandatory forms, etc.) will be desk rejected.

2: Demonstration of Author Expertise, Meaningful Senior Oversight and Clear Contributions

Since large language models became publicly available, the Journal has received an increasing number of submissions, many of which we believe are AI-generated. This increase in the submission rate of manuscripts that do not meet basic standards for scientific integrity and verifiable authorship has forced us to revise our policy to address these challenges.

The Journal welcomes submissions from authors at all career stages. However, we require demonstrated subject expertise in the author team, with meaningful senior oversight and clear contributions.  The editorial staff may contact you and request evidence proving authors’ expertise (for example: current institutional affiliation and role, a brief CV, and/or a list of relevant publications or research outputs). If adequate evidence is not provided when requested, the manuscript will not be sent to peer review.

3: ORCID iDs for ALL Authors

To facilitate the preliminary evaluation of submissions, we now require that ALL authors provide their ORCID iDs (https://orcid.org). Beyond the basic information required by ORCID, authors are strongly encouraged to complete their ORCID records with relevant optional information, especially details on their employment, links to other IDs such as a Scopus Author ID or ResearcherID, past publications, and other research outputs. Authors should ensure that their ORCID record accurately reflects their full first (given) and last name (surname, family name, initial name) and current affiliation. Since ORCID name entry can be confusing, please follow our ORCID instructions carefully.

Note: During the submission process, the system may not accept an ORCID iD if the name in the ORCID record does not match the name entered in the submission system.

4: Regarding Letters to the Editor and Review Articles

We will be especially selective with Letters to the Editor, whose critique of published manuscripts in our journal should provide added value from content experts. Letters to the Editor that critique an RMMJ article will be considered for Editorial Board review only when they are authored by individuals with relevant subject-matter expertise and when the letter provides evidence-based, specific, and constructive commentary.

We will also be selective in accepting narrative and systematic reviews for further peer review. Authors wishing to submit a review should provide an explanation in the cover letter why the manuscript is important in light of the already published scholarly work. For any type of review, the cover letter must answer the following questions:

  • What specific question(s) does the review address?
  • What important gap does it fill that is not already addressed by existing reviews and key primary literature
  • How does this review differ from, or improve upon, the most recent and most relevant reviews on the topic (cite them in the cover letter)?

Manuscripts not meeting the above criteria will desk rejected