“Patients’ choice”

Patients are becoming better informed and are increasingly involved in complex decisions of management. Patients are also becoming more involved in setting the medical research agenda. We know many major advances in medical science emerge from research that had no obvious clinical application; nevertheless, input into the direction of translational research is important. Equally it would be useful to have an input into the product of research—that is, publication. Bibliometrics reflect the interest and value to researchers themselves and are powerful drivers of further funding. A bibliometric that incorporates patient views, and we are all patients at some point, remains elusive. However, the journal would welcome patients’ views on our publications and to that end we are introducing “patients’ choice”. We already have an editor’s choice—a paper considered to be of particular interest or importance—that is freely downloadable from the website. The “patients’ choice” will also be a free download. It will be an article thought to be of particular interest to patients and we have engaged the assistance of the BMJ Patient Forum to identify such articles. The decision to publish remains with the editors—like the editor’s choice, the patients’ choice is only made after the issue contents have been decided. We hope that authors will welcome this recognition of their papers and a wider readership will find it useful.