The Journal That Did Not Exist
It started with a WhatsApp message at 11:43 PM.
Dr. Hammad Ali (fresh PGR, General Surgery Year 1, the most enthusiastic and the most reckless member of The Research Clinic) sent a screenshot to the group chat with three celebration emojis and the caption: “ACCEPTED! My first paper got accepted! They said it will be published in 2 weeks!”
Dr. Sumaira Talib was the first to respond: “Congratulations! Which journal?”
Hammad typed the name proudly: “International Archives of Advanced Medical Research.” (The journal names in this story are made up.)
Silence. The kind of silence that happens in a WhatsApp group when everyone is thinking the same thing, but nobody wants to be the first to say it.
Dr. Bushra Fatima broke it. She had three papers of her own, all accepted quickly by journals that had emailed her directly, and she was proud of them. “Hammad,” she typed, “how long between your submission and the acceptance?”
“Four days! Amazing, right? They said my paper was excellent!”
Bushra sent a thumbs-up. “Mine took about two weeks each. Fast journals are the best!” Sumaira did not reply. Something about the story worried her.
I read the whole exchange the next morning and called an unscheduled session. Hammad walked in beaming. Bushra walked in with a printed copy of her CV.
“Hammad,” I began gently, “check something for me. Search for your journal’s name in the Web of Science Master Journal List and in Scopus Sources.”
He opened the Master Journal List on his phone, typed the name and hit search. Zero results. He tried again, thinking he had misspelled it. Zero results. He tried Scopus. Zero results.
“Sir, maybe they haven’t updated their lists?”
Dr. Hassan Raza, in his usual seat near the door, raised his hand. “Sir, a basic question. What exactly is HEC recognition? Why does it matter? Can’t we just publish anywhere?”
Dr. Zunaira Malik leaned forward slightly from the back row. She had been wondering the same thing, but would never have asked.
I picked up a marker and drew two overlapping circles on the whiteboard: HEC and PMDC. “By the time we finish today,” I said, “you will know which journals count in Pakistan, how to check any journal in ten minutes, and why publishing in the wrong journal is worse than not publishing at all.”
HEC: Where a Journal’s Category Comes From
The Higher Education Commission is Pakistan’s apex body for higher education. For research, its most important function is journal recognition: it places journals in W, X and Y categories, which universities, selection boards and the CPSP all use.
Until 30 September 2024, HEC scored journals through its own system, HJRS (HEC Journal Recognition System). That system is no longer used. Under the HEC Journals and Publications Policy 2024 (amended in November 2025), a journal’s category comes directly from where it is indexed:
- W category: journals in the Web of Science Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) or Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). This is the strongest entry on an academic CV.
- X category: journals in the Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), plus Pakistani Scopus-indexed journals that meet extra HEC criteria (international authorship, an online journal system, limits on papers from the journal’s own institution, and international peer review).
- Y category: all other Scopus-indexed journals; journals in MEDLINE/PubMed, CNKI or DOAJ that are not in Web of Science or Scopus; and national journals recommended by HEC committees, which must gain international indexing within five years. Y journals are recognised, but many selection boards give them less weight.
Two more rules matter. HEC does not recognise any journal on the Cabells list of predatory journals, whatever it claims about its indexing. And the policy makes authors responsible for checking that a journal is genuine, not a hijacked or cloned copy. Nobody will check for you. Because the category follows the indexing, it changes when the indexing changes, so check the journal yourself every time you submit.
PMDC and the CPSP Rule
The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council regulates the medical and dental professions. For research, its main role is setting the publication requirements for academic posts, which we saw in Dr. Junaid’s promotion letter. Under the PMDC Teaching Regulations 2025, a paper counts for promotion only if the journal is on the PMDC approved list of journals, or is indexed in Medline/PubMed, PubMed Central, Index Medicus, Excerpta Medica/Embase, Web of Science or Scopus.
PMDC keeps its own list. It does not simply follow the HEC categories. So you check both: the indexing for the HEC category, and the PMDC list or the indexing databases for PMDC credit.
FCPS trainees have a third rule. Since the CPSP notification of 22 July 2025, the published synopsis-based article needed before the FCPS Part-II theory examination must be in an HEC W or X category journal, or in a Y category journal that is also on the PMDC list. Rules change, so always check the latest notifications.
“PMDC sets the destination for promotion,” I told the team. “HEC gives the categories that universities and the CPSP use. You need to read both maps.”
Hassan perked up. “So if I do my thesis properly and publish it in the right journal, it counts for everything?”
“Now you are thinking, Hassan.”
Dr. Junaid Rashid, his rejection letter still folded inside his notebook, asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Sir, what about doctors like me, who are already senior but have few publications?”
“You start now,” I said. “You have fifteen years of clinical observations. Every one of them is a potential research question. We just need to put them on paper, in the right way, in the right journal.”
The CV That Fell Apart
That was when Bushra put her CV on my desk.
“Sir, I want to clarify something. I know some people here think I am starting from zero. But I already have three publications. Three. I have been doing research since my house job.”
I read the three entries:
- “Prevalence of Anemia in Pregnant Women: A Hospital-Based Study.” International Archives of Clinical Medicine and Research. 2024.
- “Knowledge and Attitude Towards Family Planning Among Women of Reproductive Age.” World Journal of Medical Science and Health Care. 2024.
- “Outcomes of Emergency Caesarean Sections in a Tertiary Care Hospital.” Global Research Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2025.
Three papers, three journals, eighteen months. “Bushra, which HEC category is each of these journals in? Is any of them on the PMDC list?”
She hesitated. “I think they are international journals, sir. They have ‘International’ and ‘World’ in their names. They must be indexed somewhere.”
Hammad, very quietly, handed her his phone, still open on the Master Journal List. She searched all three. Then Scopus. Then the PMDC list. The room had gone very still.
“None of these journals falls into any HEC category,” I said carefully, “and none is on the PMDC list. None is indexed in PubMed, Scopus or Web of Science. None has a verifiable editorial board or a transparent peer review process. These are predatory journals. And Hammad, so is yours.”
Bushra’s face went through confusion, denial, anger and finally a long, painful moment of realisation. “But they sent me a certificate of publication. They have a website. They have an ISSN number.”
“All of those can be obtained without meeting any quality standard,” I said. “An ISSN is a registration number, not a quality check. A website can be built in an afternoon. I am sorry, Bushra. But you need to hear this now, before you build a career on a foundation that will collapse at the first serious review.”
What Predatory Journals Are, and Why They Target Pakistan
Predatory journals are fake or substandard publications that exist to make money. They charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) but provide little or no real peer review, editorial oversight or quality control. They copy the look of real journals: professional websites, scientific-sounding names, claims of indexing and official-looking acceptance letters. Your paper goes in, your money goes out, and your research disappears where no editor, reviewer or promotion committee will respect it.
Pakistani doctors are heavily targeted, for three reasons. The pressure to publish is enormous: PMDC requires papers for promotion, the CPSP requires a published article before FCPS Part-II, and institutions judge faculty on research output. Research training in most medical colleges is thin, so doctors cannot recognise the scam. And a doctor who receives an email saying “Dear Dr. Ahmed, we have reviewed your profile and invite you to submit to our esteemed journal” feels flattered, not suspicious.
“How many of you have received emails like that?” I asked. Every hand went up. Even Zunaira’s.
“Some genuine journals do send calls for papers, so an email alone proves nothing. But if a journal is chasing you with praise and promises of fast publication, ask yourself why it needs to recruit authors this way.”
The 10 Red Flags
- Unsolicited invitation emails, often praising your “distinguished research profile.”
- Suspiciously fast acceptance. Real peer review takes weeks to months. Acceptance within days, with no real comments, means the paper was never reviewed.
- No real indexing. The journal is in none of the databases above and not on the PMDC list. A journal claiming to be indexed is not the same as being indexed: check the database yourself.
- Fake or unverifiable editorial board. You cannot find the editors on Google Scholar or institutional websites, or their names were used without permission.
- Vague or absent peer review policy, or impossibly fast promises.
- Fees that appear only after acceptance. Genuine open access journals state their APC clearly on the website before you submit.
- A name that copies a reputable journal, changing one word or letter, or a grand name like the made-up “Global Journal of Universal Medical Excellence.”
- A fake impact factor from services such as “Global Impact Factor”. The only Impact Factor comes from Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports; Scopus CiteScore is another genuine metric.
- Publishing across unrelated disciplines, from medicine to engineering to law.
- Poor website quality: broken links, spelling errors, stock photos, and no address beyond a Gmail account.
Hammad was counting on his fingers. “Sir, mine had at least five.”
How to Check Any Journal in Ten Minutes
Run every journal through these steps before you submit a single paper.
- Find its HEC category and check the PMDC list. Search the exact title and ISSN in the Web of Science Master Journal List (mjl.clarivate.com), Scopus Sources (scopus.com/sources), the NLM Catalog and DOAJ, and check HEC’s list of recognised national journals. Then check the PMDC approved list. If the journal fits no HEC category and is not on the PMDC list, walk away.
- Make sure the indexing is current and the website is real. Indexing is a check, not a guarantee. PubMed also lists journals that are not in MEDLINE because their articles sit in PubMed Central, and Scopus regularly drops titles. Reach the journal’s website through the database record, so you do not land on a hijacked copy.
- Use Think.Check.Submit (thinkchecksubmit.org). Beall’s list was taken down in 2017 and is out of date, so do not rely on it or its copies. HEC itself uses the Cabells predatory list, a paid service; ask your university library whether it has access.
- Check DOAJ for open access journals. Being listed is a good sign. Hybrid journals are not in DOAJ, so “not in DOAJ” alone is not a red flag, unless a fully open access journal that charges an APC is missing and shows other red flags.
- Verify the ISSN at issn.org, remembering that an ISSN only proves registration, not quality.
- Look up the editorial board. Are they real researchers in the journal’s field?
- Read two or three recent articles. Poorly written papers with old or irrelevant references mean poor peer review, or none.
To save time, start with the compiled PMDC and HEC journal lists on UPMED, then confirm in the databases, because indexing changes. For strong promotion cases, aim for W and X category journals. Y category journals are a reasonable start early in your career, but for the CPSP rule a Y journal counts only if it is also on the PMDC list.
The Real Cost
Bushra spoke again, quietly. Something from a few months earlier had suddenly made sense.
“I applied for a part-time research associate post at a private medical college,” she said. “During the interview, the committee asked about my publications. I presented them proudly. The chairman opened a laptop, searched each journal in Web of Science and Scopus, and turned the screen to the panel. One member asked: ‘Did you not check before submitting?’ I had no answer. I was not offered the position. Until today, I did not understand why.”
“They did not just ignore those papers,” I said. “They questioned your judgment. Either you did not know the difference, or you knew and were padding your CV. Neither impression helps.” The cost of a predatory journal is much more than the fee:
- Wasted research: months of work buried where nobody reads or cites it.
- Career damage: in Pakistan’s academic system, a predatory publication can be worse than none.
- Misconduct concerns: some institutions and funders treat knowingly publishing in predatory journals as research misconduct.
- Bad science spreads: unreviewed papers with errors get cited by others.
The Way Forward
I turned to Hammad first. “Your paper is accepted but not yet published. Write to the journal today and withdraw it, in writing. Pay nothing. Then it is still yours to submit to a real journal.” He was already typing.
Bushra stayed after the others left. “Sir, those three papers, do I remove them from my CV?”
“No. Do not hide them. Hiding a publication looks far worse if someone finds it later. Keep them on your CV honestly, but never count them as recognised publications for PMDC or the CPSP. You can also ask each journal for a formal withdrawal.”
“Can I rewrite them and send them to real journals?”
“Not in the way you think. They are already published, so sending the same data elsewhere is duplicate publication, which is misconduct. It is only possible if the first journal formally withdraws or retracts the paper and you tell the new editor the whole history, and many predatory journals never reply. The safer path is your synopsis study on antenatal corticosteroids. You already know how to collect data and write. This time we design it properly, and we choose the journal properly.”
Something shifted in her expression. Not the competitive ambition that usually drove her. Something quieter. “I will not make this mistake again,” she said.
“I know you will not. And when you share your story with other doctors, you will stop many of them from making it too.”
Key Takeaways
- HEC’s W, X and Y categories now come from indexing: W from SCIE, SSCI and AHCI; X from ESCI and some Pakistani Scopus journals; Y from other Scopus, MEDLINE/PubMed, CNKI and DOAJ journals and HEC-recommended national journals. HJRS is no longer used.
- PMDC credit needs a journal on the PMDC list or in the recognised indexes. The CPSP synopsis article needs a W or X journal, or a Y journal that is also on the PMDC list.
- Learn the 10 red flags, and check every journal yourself before you submit. Indexing is a check, not a guarantee.
- Publishing in a predatory journal is not neutral. It is negative.
- If a predatory journal has accepted but not published your paper, withdraw it in writing. If it is already published, list it honestly and never send the same data to another journal.
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