Re: How would you like to die?

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 59, No. 6, July August 2017, Page 294 Letters

Thank you for Dr E.M. Wong’s sensitive review of books about death and dying [BCMJ 2017;59:235-238].


Thank you for Dr E.M. Wong’s sensitive review of books about death and dying [BCMJ 2017;59:235-238]. I found especially striking her comment, “When we cannot recommend further medical intervention, we can still offer companionship as patients gather strength to live out their remaining days in shared meaningfulness.” During the last year of my husband’s life, he enjoyed the routine visits to our family doctor. Booked as reviews of medication and tests, these were also occasions for doses of that strong medicine, which I now know is called companionship. Both physicians, neither was under any illusions about the prognosis; it was understood that they would work through it together.
—Phyllis Reeve
Gabriola, BC

Phyllis Reeve. Re: How would you like to die?. BCMJ, Vol. 59, No. 6, July, August, 2017, Page(s) 294 - Letters.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply