The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine and Clinical Practice and Cases in Emergency Medicine Policy for Manuscript Veracity

WestJEM and CPC-EM takes the concerns of its readers regarding the veracity of papers published very seriously. Options to express concern include the following:

1. Write a Letter to the Editor outlining concerns. The authors will be notified and given a chance to respond. The journal will then publish the concern and response electronically together in an upcoming issue. If the authors do not respond within a reasonable period, the letter of concern will be published electronically, with a notation that the authors did not respond.

2. Write directly to the Editor-in-Chief at editor@westjem.org

3. If a paper is found to have some fundamental flaw that would invalidate the results, the author will be notified and asked to retract the paper. If they agree, it will be retracted. If the authors do not agree, the letter of concern will be published without fee, and a revised version of the original paper will be labeled as having a serious concern regarding veracity, to the degree this is possible given restrictions of various WestJEM repositories.

4. If the flaw can be corrected by the paper’s authors, and a correct analysis of the original paper can be published, this will be done without additional fee.

5. The journal will make every attempt to correct the faulty or suspect paper within six months.