PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 medical journal covering the full spectrum of the medical sciences

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

. It began operation on October 19, 2004. It was the second journal of the Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science

The Public Library of Science is a nonprofit open-access scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of open access journals and other scientific literature under an open content license...

 (PLoS), a non-profit open-access publisher. All content in PLoS Medicine is published under the Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

 "by-attribution" license. To fund the journal, the publication's business model

Business model

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...

requires in most cases that authors pay publication costs.