The Ghana Medical Journal (GMJ) is the country's flagship medical journal — a respected, peer-reviewed, open-access outlet published by the Ghana Medical Association. For Ghanaian clinicians, medical students, and health researchers, publishing in the GMJ is both a credible scholarly achievement and a way to contribute findings that matter directly to practice in Ghana and the wider region. But for first-time authors, the submission process can feel opaque.
This guide explains what the GMJ publishes, how its open-access model works, the submission process, and the formatting basics — then shows how to prepare a manuscript that gives you the best chance of acceptance.
Journal requirements change — always check the journal's own author guidelines. Always consult the Ghana Medical Journal's official author guidelines (and its AJOL submissions page) for the current, authoritative rules before you submit. The guidance below is a snapshot for orientation, written to help you get started — it is not a substitute for the journal's live instructions, which are the only authoritative source.
What the Ghana Medical Journal publishes
The GMJ considers manuscripts across all medical specialties — basic sciences, para-clinical, and clinical sciences. Its main article categories include:
- Original research articles — innovative work or studies that extend established knowledge.
- Review articles — synthesised overviews of a topic.
- Case reports — extremely rare clinical syndromes or presentations, and collections of cases highlighting particular trends or problems in clinical practice.
- Clinical notes and investigations, and manuscripts on special medical events.
For many medical students and junior doctors, the case report is the most accessible entry point into publishing — a well-documented unusual case is a genuine contribution and a realistic first paper.
The open-access model: free to read, free to publish
A major advantage of the GMJ is its publishing model. It is a fully Open Access journal, applying the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 licence, and it has published open-access since 2006. Importantly, based on the journal's own information, the GMJ does not charge an article-processing (publication) fee — which removes the cost barrier that blocks many authors at other journals. (As always, confirm the current fee position on the journal's own site, since policies can change.)
The submission process
Submissions to the GMJ are handled through an online submission and review system (ScholarOne / Manuscript Central). In outline, the process is:
- Prepare your manuscript to the journal's requirements (see formatting below).
- Register and submit through the journal's online system.
- Editorial screening, then peer review by expert reviewers.
- Revisions in response to reviewer comments (most papers require at least one round).
- Acceptance and publication.
On average, authors should expect a timeline in the order of several months from submission to publication — the journal has indicated roughly twenty weeks on average — so plan ahead and submit early relative to any deadline you are working toward.
Formatting basics
The journal sets specific manuscript requirements. As an orientation snapshot (always verify against the live guidelines):
- The submission file should be a Microsoft Word document.
- Text is typically single-spaced, in a 10-point font, using italics rather than underlining (except for URLs).
- Illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, not gathered at the end.
- Follow the journal's reference style precisely, and ensure every reference is accurate and complete.
- Structure original research conventionally (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion), and follow the relevant reporting guidelines for your study type.
Again: these are orientation points, not the authoritative rules. The journal's own author guidelines specify the exact, current requirements — including reference formatting, word limits, and structure for each article type — and you should format your manuscript directly against them.
How to prepare a competitive manuscript
Acceptance is not only about formatting — it is about the quality and clarity of the work:
- Choose the right article type for your material — do not stretch a single case into "original research."
- Write a clear, structured manuscript with a focused question and a sound methodology.
- Report honestly and completely, following the appropriate reporting standards.
- Cite accurately. Every reference must be real and must genuinely support the claim it is attached to. In medicine especially, a fabricated or mis-attributed citation is a serious failing — and a fast route to rejection or, worse, retraction.
- Respond constructively to reviewers — a thoughtful revision often makes the difference.
Much medical research in Ghana flows from institutions like the Noguchi Memorial Institute and the teaching hospitals; wherever your data comes from, the discipline of writing it up well is what gets it published.
Draft your paper with our AI template writer — then format for the journal
Here is the practical workflow we recommend. We don't lock you to one journal's format. Start your paper with PaceResearcher's AI template writer — for a case report, use the Case Report template, which scaffolds the structure and drafts with you while inserting real inline citations from genuine literature (never fabricated references). Get the science and the writing right first.
Then, apply the Ghana Medical Journal's specific formatting — reference style, font, layout — directly from the journal's own live author guidelines, which remain the authoritative source. In other words: use our AI writer to draft and cite your manuscript, and handle the journal-specific formatting against the GMJ's current instructions. That way your paper is both well-written and correctly formatted, without anyone trying to maintain a per-journal template that would inevitably go stale.
To understand where much of Ghana's medical research originates, read our guide on collaborating and publishing through the Noguchi Memorial Institute.