Medical journals are information carriers that are intended to be published for a long time, with the contents of medicine and medical-related disciplines as the content, and numbered in order of volume and period and/or year and period. Medical journals published publicly in China are continuous publications mainly publishing medical academic papers, which are approved by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television and undertaken by directly affiliated institutions, first-class associations, local medical institutions, medical colleges and hospitals.

Medical journals are important information sources of medical research, which gather the medical experience and work achievements of medical workers and reflect the progress and level of medicine. The majority of medical workers can grasp the current situation and trend of this subject and use other people's research results to carry out new research. It plays a role as a link and bridge in spreading and exchanging academic ideas and communicating intellectual information. According to incomplete statistics, there are about1.2000 kinds of scientific and technological journals published all over the world, with an annual circulation of nearly 3 billion copies, of which 25% are biological and medical journals with a circulation of about 700 million copies. Compared with books, periodicals have the characteristics of short publishing period, strong professionalism, flexible topic selection, many authors and good retrieval performance.