Indian Journal of Clinical Practice
Overview
The Indian Journal of Clinical Practice is an English-language monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published from New Delhi by the IJCP Group. It is the group's flagship journal and a multispecialty title, providing clinicians with evidence-based, updated information on a diverse range of common medical topics, including those frequently encountered by the Indian physician, so that they can make informed clinical decisions in everyday practice.
First launched in June 1990, the journal has been published regularly every month since. It appears in print and online, carries the print ISSN 0971-0876 and the RNI number 50798/1990, and is indexed with the Indian Citation Index and IndMed and listed with MedIND. Its publisher states that it reaches a circulation of more than three lakh doctors, making it one of the most widely circulated clinical journals addressed to practising physicians in India.
Founding and the IJCP Group
The IJCP Group was founded in 1990 by Dr K. K. Aggarwal, a Padma Shri and Dr B. C. Roy National Award recipient, and the group describes itself as a pioneer of medical journalism in India. It was started with the basic objective of updating the knowledge of medical professionals. Its first publication was this journal, launched in 1990 by Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, the then Vice President of India, according to the group's own account of its history.
From that single monthly journal, the group grew into a wider medical communications organisation. Its own history lists multispecialty journals, customised books and publications, events, consulting, branding, continuing medical education activities, doctor meetings and key opinion leader interactions among its activities. Dr Aggarwal served as the group's editor-in-chief and was a former national president of the Indian Medical Association and a member of the ethics committee of the Medical Council of India, roles that kept the publishing house closely connected to the organised medical profession it served.
A Multispecialty Journal for the Practising Doctor
The journal's defining choice is breadth. Rather than serving one specialty, it addresses the common medical topics a physician meets across a working week, in India specifically. The group's description stresses topics frequently encountered by the Indian physician, which gives the journal a practical, clinic-level orientation: its purpose is not only to publish research, but to help a busy doctor decide what to do for the patient in front of them.
That orientation explains its article mix. The journal publishes original research articles, clinical reviews, case reports, expert viewpoints and clinical practice guidelines. Alongside those conventional categories sit features rarely found together in a research journal, reflecting a deliberate editorial formula built for practising clinicians rather than only for academics.
Sections and Notable Features
The journal's published contents framework lists, among its regular elements, consensus statements, original articles, clinical studies and case reports, together with sections headed Medicolegal, Medical Voice for Policy Change, Conference Proceedings, Around the Globe, Spiritual Update, Inspirational Story and Lighter Reading. Its descriptive material also names Medilaw, Medifinance and a lighter side of medicine among its regular fare, plus the latest news and updates in medicine from around the globe.
Each of those sections does distinct work. Medicolegal and Medilaw material addresses the legal exposure that accompanies modern Indian practice. Medifinance speaks to the business of running a practice. Spiritual Update and the inspirational and lighter features acknowledge that its readers are people as well as clinicians, and they have long been part of the journal's recognisable character — a clinical journal that a doctor might read cover to cover, rather than only consult for one article. Conference proceedings and global news round-ups, meanwhile, keep readers who cannot travel to conferences in touch with what was said there.
Peer Review, Indexing and Recognition
The journal presents itself as peer-reviewed, and it publishes original research, reviews and case reports submitted by authors, researchers and healthcare professionals. The journal invites contributions across its categories, including original research articles, clinical reviews, case reports, expert viewpoints and clinical practice guidelines on a wide range of medical topics.
On indexing, the journal states that it is indexed with the Indian Citation Index and IndMed, and listed with MedIND, the online database of Indian biomedical journals. It also states that it is recognised by the University Grants Commission, and notes the relevance of that recognition and its Indian Citation Index listing to the Medical Council of India's approach to approved journals. For Indian medical academics, whose promotion and assessment systems take journal recognition into account, those listings are a practical reason to submit work to the journal as well as to read it.
Frequency, Formats and Digital Access
The journal is monthly and has maintained that regularity since June 1990 — a span that includes the whole modern expansion of Indian private healthcare, medical education and pharmaceutical practice. It is available in print and online, with full text presented through the group's e-book platform and its websites, and the journal has also been accessible through a mobile app on Android and iPhone, allowing doctors to sign up and browse issues on a phone.
That combination matters for its audience. A printed monthly on a clinic desk, an online archive for reference, and phone access for reading between patients together explain how a journal founded in the pre-internet era sustained a claimed circulation in the lakhs. The group's wider digital activities, including its doctor-network and medical content platforms, extend the same updating mission beyond the printed issue.
Audience and Circulation
The journal is addressed to clinicians — practising physicians first of all, and more broadly to researchers, academicians and healthcare professionals. Its own calls for papers invite authors who wish to share views, breaking news, articles, research or an interesting case report with more than three lakh doctors to submit to its editorial office, which states the publisher's claimed circulation directly.
Readers should understand that figure as the publisher's own statement of reach rather than an independently audited number quoted here. Even with that caution, the scale claimed, the journal's monthly regularity since 1990 and its indexing together support its standing as a mass-circulation clinical title by Indian medical publishing standards — a journal found in clinics and hospitals rather than only in medical college libraries.
Role in Indian Medical Journalism
The IJCP Group calls itself a pioneer of medical journalism in India, and the journal is the evidence for that claim. Before the era of medical news websites and doctor apps, a monthly printed journal that mixed research, guidelines, medicolegal advice, finance, policy voices and lighter reading was a novel proposition for Indian doctors. The journal helped establish the idea that keeping practising physicians updated is a publishing mission in its own right, distinct from publishing for researchers alone.
Its content is, the journal notes, often quoted by newspapers, which extends its influence beyond the profession to public discussion of health. Through continuing medical education activities, events and key opinion leader interactions around it, the group built an ecosystem in which the journal is the printed core of a continuing conversation between medical experts and the doctors who treat most patients.
Contributing and Subscribing
Authors can submit manuscripts across the journal's categories — original research, clinical reviews, case reports, expert viewpoints and guidelines among them — through the journal's editorial contact published on its website. The journal welcomes contributions from authors, researchers and healthcare professionals, and its calls for papers give the editorial email address for submissions and enquiries.
Readers can take the journal in print, read it online through the IJCP Group's e-book platform, and follow it through the group's websites. Its bibliographic identity is stable and easy to cite: Indian Journal of Clinical Practice, monthly, print ISSN 0971-0876, RNI 50798/1990, published by the IJCP Group in New Delhi since June 1990.
Standing Today
More than three decades after its launch by the then Vice President of India, the Indian Journal of Clinical Practice remains what it was designed to be: a monthly, multispecialty, peer-reviewed companion for the practising Indian doctor. Its formula — evidence-based clinical updating, presented alongside the legal, financial, policy and human dimensions of practice — has kept it distinct from both narrow specialty journals and purely academic research titles.
For clinicians it offers breadth and regularity; for authors it offers a recognised, indexed Indian journal with a very large claimed readership; and for the historian of Indian medicine it documents, issue by issue since 1990, what the country's doctors were being advised to do in clinic. That combination of longevity, reach and practical intent is the journal's lasting contribution to Indian medical publishing.
