Pharmacy Citation Guide (Vancouver Style)

These rules apply to scholarly articles, articles in trade publications and magazine articles. Use this format even if you find the journal online. 

Author(s). Article title. Journal title abbreviated. Date of publication; volume number(issue number): page numbers.

• Author names should be abbreviated Lastname INITIALS - e.g. Hutchinson KH - with no punctuation between lastname and firstname and no periods after the initials. For more rules about author names, see Citing Medicine.
• If there are three authors or less, use all the names. If there are more than three authors, use the first three names, followed by "et al." 
• Journal titles should be abbreviated using the official abbreviation from PubMed's NLM Catalog, unless your professor has advised otherwise.
• Dates should be formatted "2017 Mar 5," always using only the first three letters of the month. 
• For supplemental issues, add this information after the date. For example, "2005 Jan; Suppl:"
• Page numbers should be condensed, for example page 1204 to 1267 becomes 1204-67. 

Article with up to three authors:

Lee H, Zhang Y. BSP-SLIM: a blind low-resolution ligand-protein docking approach using predicted protein structures. Proteins. 2012 Jan 15;80(1):93-110.

Article with more than three authors:

Fujimori T, Iwasaki M, Nagamoto Y, et al. Three-dimensional measurement of growth of ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament. J Neurosurg Spine. 2012 Mar;16(3):289-95. 

No author:

Salmonella in backyard poultry. JAMA. 2016 Sep 13;316(10):1036.  

Published abstract (usually a summary of a presentation at a meeting): 

Want LL, Ratner RE, Uwaifo GI. Safety and tolerability of long-term pramlintide therapy [abstract]. Diabetes. 2004 Jun;53 Suppl 2:A150.

Journal articles without volume, issue, page numbers, odd page numbers, etc.:

In case you encounter these odd situations, cite the article as best you can given the information available.

For example, no volume or issue:

Schwartz-Cassell T. Feeding assistants: based on logic or way off base? Contemp Longterm Care. 2005 Jan;26-8.

Or no page numbers (in this case, a guess as to the page):

Jerger J. Broadening our horizons. J Am Acad Audiol. 1998 Feb;9(1):[preceding p.1]. 

Figures, tables and images in journal articles are cited as "parts" of a journal. Begin by citing the journal article as normal, then append information pointing to the figure or table (in red):

Mitchell GF, Pfeffer MA. Evaluation and management of patients with uncontrolled systolic hypertension: is another new paradigm really needed? Am Heart J. 2005 May;149(5):776-84. Figure 3, Regional pressure wave forms in the normal arterial system; p. 780.