All sources of financial support should be disclosed. All authors should disclose if a meaningful conflict of interest exists in the process of forming their study. Any financial grants or other support received for a submitted study from individuals or institutions should be disclosed to the Editorial Board of the Turkish Medical Student Journal. The ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form should be filled in and submitted by all contributing authors to disclose a potential conflict of interest. The journal's Editorial Board determines cases of a potential conflict of interest of the editors, authors, or reviewers within the scope of COPE and ICMJE guidelines.

Conditions that provide financial or personal benefit bring about a conflict of interest. The reliability of the scientific process and the published articles is directly related to the objective consideration of conflicts of interest during the planning, implementation, writing, evaluation, editing, and publication of scientific studies.

Financial relations are the most easily identified conflicts of interest, and it is inevitable that they will undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and the science. These conflicts can be caused by individual relations, academic competition, or intellectual approaches. The authors should refrain as much as possible from making agreements with sponsors in the opinion of gaining profit or any other advantage that restrict their ability to access all data of the study or analyze, interpret, prepare, and publish their articles. Editors should refrain from bringing together those who may have any relationship between them during the evaluation of the studies. The editors, who make the final decision about the articles, should not have any personal, professional, or financial ties with any of the issues they are going to decide. Authors should inform the editorial board concerning potential conflicts of interest to ensure that their articles will be evaluated within the framework of ethical principles through an independent assessment process.

If one of the editors is an author in any manuscript, the editor is excluded from the manuscript evaluation process. In order to prevent any conflict of interest, the article evaluation process is carried out in a double-anonymous manner. Because of the double-anonymous evaluation process, none of the international advisory board members or reviewers are informed about the authors of the manuscript or the institutions of the authors.

Our publication team works devotedly to ensure that the evaluation process is conducted impartially, considering all these situations.

Conflict of Interest

The declaration of the conflict of interest between authors, institutions, and acknowledgement of any financial or material support, aid is mandatory for authors submitting a manuscript, and the statement should appear at the end of the manuscript. Reviewers are required to report if any potential conflict of interest exists between the reviewer and the authors and/or institutions.

For Authors:

All authors must clearly disclose any conflicts of interest that could have influenced the conception, design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, writing, or publication of the submitted manuscript.
Financial relationships, such as research funding, honoraria, consultancy, employment, stock ownership, or other financial interests, must be fully disclosed. Similarly, non-financial relationships, including personal relationships, academic competition, or intellectual conflicts, must also be transparently reported.
All sources of financial support and grants related to the manuscript must be clearly stated to the Editorial Board.
Authors are required to complete and submit the ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form during manuscript submission.
The conflict of interest statement must explicitly appear at the end of the manuscript.
Authors should avoid agreements with study sponsors or other parties that could limit their access to the complete data or restrict their ability to independently analyze, interpret, write, and publish the study results.
Any potential conflicts must be clearly stated to ensure impartial, ethical, and independent review.

For Reviewers:

Reviewers must disclose any potential conflict of interest with authors, their institutions, or the submitted manuscript that could influence their review.
Potential conflicts include recent collaboration, financial or professional connections, personal relationships, academic competition, or intellectual disagreements relevant to the submitted work.
Reviewers with conflicts of interest must recuse themselves from the review process and promptly notify the editorial office of their conflict.

For Editors:

Editors who oversee peer-review processes and make final publication decisions must disclose and avoid any personal, professional, financial, or intellectual conflict related to the manuscript under consideration.
Editors must not participate in decision-making processes related to manuscripts authored by themselves or by individuals or institutions with whom they have close professional, personal, or financial relationships. In these cases, the involved editor will be explicitly excluded from the manuscript evaluation and decision-making process.
Editors must avoid inviting reviewers who have known or reasonably anticipated conflicts with authors or submitted work.
Manuscripts authored by editorial board members or by the Editor-in-Chief are handled with careful attention to objectivity, independence, and confidentiality.
The Turkish Medical Student Journal strictly applies a double-blind peer review process, where reviewers and editorial board members (except the Editor-in-Chief) remain unaware of authors’ identities and affiliations to ensure unbiased evaluation.
Editorial Board decisions regarding conflicts of interest follow clearly defined COPE and ICMJE guidelines.