Background: Although publishing in scientific journals has an educational component, the educational role of journals in medicine has not been evaluated.
Purpose: To assess whether tutoring authors in a medical scientific journal could be related to their long-term scientific publications and academic advancement.
Methods: The study included 47 journal authors who were individually tutored in scientific writing and data presentation by the editors of the Croatian Medical Journal during the 1991-1995 war years and 47 colleagues the authors identified as their academic peers at the time of tutoring. We assessed their published articles in scientific journals, citations to these articles, and academic advancement, defined as the level of postgraduate education and advancement in the academic rank.
Results: By 2003, tutored authors published more articles in MEDLINE-indexed journals than their academic peers (median = 4, interquartile range = 1-9 vs. 1 [0-5], respectively; p = .0265), and received more citations to these articles (4 [0-16] vs. 1 [0-6], p = .0275). They also made a significantly greater academic advancement, assessed as a score of their academic rank and research degree (2 [0-4] vs. 1 [0-2], p = .0369).
Conclusions: Editorial tutoring of journal authors can positively influence their long-term academic advancement. Journals may have an important teaching role in local academic communities.