International Surgery

Dear Reader:

I have accepted the position of Editor-in-Chief, International Surgery, with a sense of great responsibility and with profound dedication to vision, mission, and goals to make International Surgery, the Journal of the International College of Surgeons, one of the finest medical journals published in the world. I have received many good wishes and many suggestions in reference to International Surgery.

Our vision is to improve the lives of patients through communication of advances in surgery and educational development of the International surgical community. This will be done by achieving and maintaining International leadership in the communication of surgical clinical research and teaching. Our goal – to be recognized as one of the 10 leading prestigious International scholarly surgical journals.

The world of scientific, technical, and medical (STM) journals is very large. It is estimated that approximately 16,000 STM journals exist worldwide. Approximately 1.2 million new articles are published annually. The U.S. Library of Medicine covers 4300 biomedical journals in the Index Medicus, Medline and through the associated search engine PubMed. All of these journals are making changes on a continuing basis.

We will keep pace with these rapid changes. Electronic publishing, and the many advantages associated with electronic publishing, must be considered, including linking with appropriate consents and precautions to other articles, color photos at no extra cost, and streaming video. Peer review must become even much more inclusive and open, allowing a significantly greater proportion of experts to weigh in on new findings prior to publication.

Over the forthcoming months, readers will see changes in both appearance and content. Please note that not all of these changes will occur at one time.

I am confident that we, together, will achieve our goal of making International Surgery one of the best surgical journals in the world. I ask for your support and for your ongoing suggestions as we proceed.

Thank you.