Conflict of interest
1. The Author is obliged to report to the Publisher (Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education) all conflicts of interest: any cases of personal and financial dependence (e.g. resulting from employment, consultancy, ownership of shares, fees), academic competition, possible role of the sponsor of the research or parts thereof in the project and development of the obtained data that could affect the interpretation and presentation of test results. The model statement is attached as Annex 1 hereto.
2. The statement referred to in par. 1 shall be submitted together with the text sent for publication.

Author's statement – download

Protection of patients/Ethical requirements
3. The Author is obliged to protect patients’ personal data in accordance with the applicable provisions on personal data protection, including Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (hereinafter referred to as “GDPR”) (OJ L 119, p. 1).
4. Texts, materials and photographs must not contain personal data of patients or any other natural persons who have participated in the scientific study, with the exception of natural persons who own rights to the text and materials in accordance with the provisions relating to copyright.
5. Personal data shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (“Data Subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as name and surname, identification number, location data, online ID or to one or more factors specific to their physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.
6. All personal data contained in the text, materials and photographs, including medical records and image and distinguishing marks (e.g. scars, birthmarks, tattoos) of patients must be pseudonymised by the Author, i.e. it should be processed in such a way that the data can no longer be attributed to a specific Data Subject, in particular to prevent the identification of a natural person.
The pseudonymisation process should include such security measures, that will also prevent the identification of a natural person (patient), including the use of additional information.
7. Pseudonymization shall be considered ineffective, in particular when the following additional information is disclosed: image, scars, tattoos, birthmarks, distinguishing marks, medical record numbers, patient identifier codes, test results numbers and other alphanumeric identifiers used by healthcare institutions for registration purposes.
9. The text and materials may contain only such medical, clinical and scientific data (e.g. gender, age, history of the present illness, types of treatment, results and effects), which are adequate and appropriate for presenting the subject matter of the publication, subject to para. 4.
10. The Author bears all responsibility for any damages caused by the contents of the text and materials due to failure to meet the obligations resulting from the GDPR and in connection with non-observance of professional secrecy (e.g. medical confidentiality, physician–patient privilege, confidentiality applied in pharmacies, clinical and counselling psychology, occupational medicine, organ transplantation, and blood donation).
11. Papers submitted to the Editorial Board must comply with the requirements of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Author of papers containing experimental and pharmacological research conducted on people should obtain consent from the competent bioethics commission – the consent should be attached to the sent article.
12. The Author of papers containing experimental and pharmacological research on animals should obtain consent from the competent bioethics commission – the consent should be attached to the sent article.
13. The Editorial Board of the journal shall analyse the text, materials and photographs for the observance of rules specified in this section, and in case of doubt, shall consult the appropriate organizational unit of the Centre in the field of personal data protection.

Assuring originality of scientific publications
1. The Publisher shall recognize the following phenomena as unacceptable: ghostwriting, guest authorship, and plagiarism, which are all a manifestation of scientific misconduct:

a. ghostwriting shall mean situations when someone has made a significant contribution to the publication, but their contribution as one of the authors has not been disclosed or has not been mentioned in the article’s acknowledgments.
b. guest authorship (honorary authorship) shall mean situations when a person has not participated in writing the publication or their contribution was limited, but is mentioned as the Author or a co-author of the article.

2. The Publisher requires the Author to submit a statement regarding the contribution of individual Authors to the publication (including their affiliation and contribution, i.e. information on who is the author of particular concepts, assumptions, methods, protocol, etc. used when writing the publication), while the Author submitting the manuscript shall be the main person responsible. The statement shall be attached as annex to the contract referred to in § 4 para. 3.
3. The Publisher reserves the right to notify relevant entities (institutions employing the authors, scientific societies, associations of science editors, etc.) on any cases of ghostwriting, guest authorship and plagiarism in the articles submitted for publication.
4. The Publisher declares that they will document any signs of scientific misconduct, especially violations of ethical principles in science.
5. The Publisher reserves the right to monitor the submitted works using the anti-plagiarism system.