Submitted manuscripts must represent original work not previously published elsewhere, including non-English journals. Any suspected incidence of plagiarism will be handled according to Committee on Public Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Redundant publication or submission is prohibited and will also be handled according to COPE guidelines.

All studies must have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki. Accordingly, all studies involving human subjects must have approval from the appropriate institutional review board (IRB), and informed consent must be obtained from all patients prior to proceeding with a study. Studies involving animal models must have appropriate approval from an institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC). Letters confirming IRB and/or IACUC approval are not required to be submitted along with the manuscript, but a statement attesting to compliance with this directive should be included within the text of the manuscript, typically within the Methods section. The Orthopaedic Journal at Harvard Medical School (OJHMS) reserves the right to perform further investigation of institutional approval of human and animal studies and may request IRB/IACUC approval letters for confirmation at any time. Clinical trials should be registered in a public trials registry, such as www.clinicaltrials.gov.

All studies must have been carried out in accordance with relevant regulations of the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Details that might disclose the identity of subjects under study should be omitted. In order to protect the privacy of patients, copies of informed consent should not be forwarded to OJHMS but appropriately retained by the author(s) and/or host institution.

Authors of a submitted manuscript should have made substantial contributions to the study design, data collection, or data analysis and be involved in drafting or critically revising the manuscript for intellectual content. All authors must indicate final approval of the manuscript version to be published, and all authors are held accountable for all aspects of the published work, including originality, data collection, and data interpretation. Individuals who have made limited contribution to the work and have not been involved with critical review of the entire manuscript should be acknowledged in a footnote.

Editors should be notified of any corrections or retractions that should be made regarding a manuscript that has already been published by OJHMS. OJHMS follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines with regards to cases requiring corrections or retractions to published articles or editorial expressions of concern regarding published articles.