title: Twelve years of "Case reports" in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  "Case reports" is the title of a column in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association devoted to educational patient histories accompanied by an expert commentary. The aim of this study is to describe the patients and authors in this column since its introduction in 1999.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study is based on electronic literature searches in the Journal's internet archive (2000-2011) supplemented by manual searches in the printed edition (1999). The medical specialities of the authors were defined on the basis of their workplace affiliations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Literature searches identified 157 case reports and 157 accompanying commentaries that had been published in "Case reports". Of the 157 patients, 73 (46.0 %) were men and 84 (54.0 %) women aged 0-90. The most frequently represented age group was 51-60 years. First authors were most often affiliated with departments of internal medicine with associated subspecialties (34.0 %), neurology (13.0 %), general surgery with subspecialties (11.0 %) and paediatrics (10.0 %). Paraclinical specialties, most frequently pathology and radiology, were mainly represented by co-authorships. Only 7 (1.0 %) of a total of 676 authors were associated with psychiatry and 5 (0.7 %) with general practice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The column "Case reports" has been illustrated through a period of 12 years by a wide range of patients, but the medical specialties are unevenly represented. It would be desirable to have more articles from specialties such as psychiatry and general practice.
authors.affiliation: Journal of the Norwegian Medical Associationand Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, England. erlend.aasheim@legeforeningen.no
authors.forename: Erlend T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Aasheim
mesh_terms: D001319:Authorship; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D009664:Norway; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000266:history / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011643:Publishing / Q000266:history / Q000706:statistics & numerical data