Image: Springer Nature
Twenty-one medical journals are being renamed in a push to increase gender equality in medicine
A clutch of German-language medical journals are changing their titles, which use male-implying terms, to gender-neutral ones in a bid to help “make gender equality in medicine more visible”, according to their publisher.
The journals, part of the Springer Medizin imprint of publisher Springer Nature, are currently named after the profession their content is targeted to, and in the German language these professions are referred to using a gender-neutral term that is identical to the masculine term.
In June, the 21 journals will be given new titles (pictured) that will focus on their specialist fields rather than the profession, in order to make them more inclusive, Springer Nature announced on 21 April.
For example, Der Internist, a journal for specialists in internal medicine, will change to Die Innere Medizin (Internal Medicine) and Der Chirurg (The Surgeon) will change to Die Chirurgie (Surgery).
Springer Nature said the content, thematic focus and viability of each title will remain unchanged.
“Medicine has long since ceased to be male dominated,” said Paul Herrmann, director of journals at Springer Medizin. “Across the medical profession today, the proportion of women is around 50 percent, in some areas it is significantly higher.”
He added: “It is important therefore that, as one of the leading publishers in academic research, we do our part to make gender equality in medicine more visible. Making sure that our journals properly and explicitly reflect the communities they are part of is a small, but important, step towards greater inclusion.”
Springer Medizin is working with the analytics company Clarivate to change the journal titles while ensuring that there is no disruption to their indexing or metrics. (Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Ex Libris, which is owned by Clarivate.)