Over these 5 years, we have become a truly international journal, receiving manuscripts from authors practicing in 20 countries (Armenia, Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Iran, Israel, Italy, Nigeria, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Uzbekistan), which are evaluated by our internal and external reviewers and editors from 7 countries (Armenia, Canada, France, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States of America) (Figure).
Our open-access journal is read in many countries, offering engaging literature reviews, original articles, and case reports to Armenian, English, and Russian-speaking audiences worldwide. The 10 issues of AJHMS contain papers not only on clinical medicine but also on experimental and translational medicine, public health, medical education, psychology, neuroscience, and even social sciences, ecology, and other related disciplines. Two of these ten issues are special issues, dedicated to the Modern Aspects of Human Reproduction (2024 volume IV, issue 2) and Translational Neuroscience (2025 volume V, issue 1). In addition to these 10 issues, AJHMS has published 3 supplements, proudly hosting the proceedings of the 9th East European and Mediterranean Meeting for Cerebral Palsy & Development Medicine (2022 volume II, issue 1S), the 6th International Medical Congress of Armenia (2023 volume III, issue 1S), and the 14th Armenian Medical World Congress (2025).
Although we have established guidelines for authors, available not only online [https://ahms.am/en/submit-an-article/author-guidelines] but also at the end of each issue, we often accept even those manuscripts that do not meet these guidelines, giving our colleagues the opportunity to become familiar with publication standards and have a chance to be published.
AJHMS publishes articles first “ahead of print” online then in print version. By the way, both the online and print versions are colorful. And all this is done free of charge thanks to the enthusiasm of our reviewers and editors, as well as the generosity of the Avdalbekyan National Institute of Health and its Director, Dr. Alexander Bazarchyan.
In 2023, after 2 years of persistent and dedicated work, AJHMS began to be indexed in the Supreme Certifying Committee of the Republic of Armenia. AJHMS is included in the CrossRef database: each article is assigned a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) code recognized globally. Our goal is to be accepted to Scopus, Web of Science (Clarivate) and PubMed (Medline) databases. To achieve this ambitious goal, we must set the highest standards to further improve the quality of articles selected for publication. In this regard, we are on the right track, continuing to implement an impartial and unbiased peer-review policy to select and contribute to the development of the best evidence-based knowledge. The true testament to this is the number of manuscripts rejected (rejection rate), which shows an upward trend despite the still not very big amount of submitted manuscripts: over these five years, 7 out of more than 100 submissions have been rejected. Many papers have been accepted for publication only after major revision.
Furthermore, it is known that authors receive a certain amount of continuing medical education (CME) credits for each published paper. With the help of Dr. Alexander Bazarchyan, we plan to implement a special initiative that will award CME credits not only to authors but also to peer-reviewers and editors who allocate so much time and effort to publishing those papers.
In terms of clinical and continuing medical education, we plan to collaborate with the Ministry of Health and professional societies of Armenia to publish guidelines developed by these bodies, with the aim of drawing the attention of physicians to these guidelines and familiarizing them with the latest recommendations for their implementation in clinical practice.
Coming back to this jubilee issue, it features literature reviews on systemic acne therapy and oral health, retinopathy of prematurity, and the role of incretin agonists in autoimmune and metabolic diseases. We also advise reading original articles on distance medical education programs in Armenia, the prevalence of adenomyosis and its ultrasound equivalents in infertility, the impact of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy on the quality of life of obese patients, and the hybrid otoplasty. You may also find case reports on the urinary bladder intestinal metaplasia involving both ureteral orifices and the use of extracorporeal hemocorrection and photohemotherapy in an exacerbation of familial Mediterranean fever. Last but not least, this impressive collection of articles concludes with a letter from our esteemed Iranian colleague on the growing burden of hypertension in Iran and a traditional article from the archives of Armenian medicine on the development of healthcare in Armenia during the first decade of Soviet rule.
We encourage you, dear readers, and your colleagues to continue submitting manuscripts for publication in AJHMS!
P.S. You may have noticed that the title of this Editorial contains an acrostic (the highlighted letters). The first 10 readers who send the correct answers to info@ahms.am will receive a copy of this jubilee issue autographed by AJHMS Director Alexander Bazarchyan and the Co-Editors-in-Chief.