Much publicity about Elsevier creating a purely online International Journal of Surgical Case Reports, where physicains pay $400 to have their written case reviewed. Here is an example published case study, with figures. A recent Medical Marketing and Media article discusses this, including the motivation to build a case database for searching valuable cases.
Online advertising may be under consideration by Elsevier, though not currently implemented.
Author fee aside, this new journal is an advance in user generated content in the typically slow moving world of publications. In addition, this seems to only move halfway to achieve a more full potential of professional social media. Why not allow surgeons to post and have discussion threads about the cases, to learn from each other, and accelerate knowledge?
