Medical journals published in non-English languages face a handicap: their
worldwide readership and citation are reduced in comparison to journals pub
lished in English. This handicap is worse for small journals edited in deve
loping countries, regardless of whether they publish original research arti
cles including abstracts in English. To facilitate the international diffus
ion of selected Chilean scientific journals, the "Comision Nacional de Inve
stigacion Cientifica y Technologica" enforced the program "SciELO Chile" wi
th a web site in Internet (www.scielo.cl) including the full text of articl
es published in recent issues. Revista Medica de Chile is the first Chilean
medical journal that appears in this web site, sponsored by the National L
ibrary of Medicine, Washington D.C. We expect that this web site will give
a favorable input to authors of articles published in our journal.