Calling for more and more general practitioner authors for AJGP
The Australian Journal of General Practice (AJGP) is Australia’s leading peer-reviewed journal for general practitioners (GPs). Importantly, AJGP reaches the entire membership of The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, is opened and read by the very large majority, and accounts for (literally) hundreds of thousands of hours of annual continuing professional development.
As well as being for GPs, AJGP needs to be increasingly by GPs. Indeed, encouraging and actively commissioning more GP authors is a key part of AJGP’s new strategy. It is self-evident that not all papers could, or should, be GP-authored, but many (even most) could be.
In 2021, at least 10% of all authors for all articles were GPs (data are incomplete). In 2022, this figure was 9%, in 2023 it was 13% and in 2024 it was 15%. For the two supplements in 2024, at least 26% of authors were GPs.
For the first two months of 2025, using complete and accurate data, we can report that 36% of authors for all articles are authored GPs. Interestingly, for our sister publication – check – the proportion of GP authors has increased from 46% in 2023 to 66% in 2025.
We do not have a GP author target for AJGP, and I don’t think there is an ideal number, and it will vary by topic.
Also, the opportunity for GPs to author articles varies by article type; ‘Beyond the clinic door’, ‘Viewpoint’ and ‘Professional’ articles offer more immediate opportunities. We all see cases that could be submitted as a ‘Case study’. And if you have a particular specific area of interest, why not consider writing a ‘Clinical’ article? More GPs are getting involved in research and we offer full ‘Research’ articles, as well as (shorter) ‘Research letters to the Editor’.
If you have any interest in writing for AJGP (or check), just get in touch with us at ajgp@racgp.org.au or checkproduction@racgp.org.au and we will help.
Author
David Wilkinson BSc (Hons), MBChB, MSc, PhD, FRACGP, Editor-in-Chief, Australian Journal of General Practice; National Clinical Lead for Continuing Professional Development, The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Brisbane, Qld