I have now been Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of General Practice for one year, and I am glad to inform you that there will now be a new and permanent Chief Editor, beginning with the fourth issue of 2009. I hope the new Editor-in-Chief will present himself in the next issue.
I was asked to take responsibility for the European Journal of General Practice because, as I was told, there were problems with the Journal. There was a delay with manuscripts, and some manuscripts had even been lost. The Publishers did a great deal of work to take care of the manuscripts from the previous Editorial Office, and I started to take care of these manuscripts and process them properly. At the same time, we took care of all new manuscripts without delay. We have tried to inform all authors about the status of manuscripts submitted from 2006 onwards. If there are still authors who have not been informed about the status of their manuscripts and have not published their manuscripts elsewhere, I ask you to contact the Publisher, and you are also welcome to submit your manuscript once more, if you wish to do so.
My main task was to make the Journal survive, and I feel that I have achieved that goal. I hope that the authors have noticed that their manuscripts during the last year have been handled quickly, and I am sure that future authors can send their manuscripts to the European Journal of General Practice and receive prompt and fair processing. Furthermore, it has been nice for me to observe that the quality of the manuscripts sent to the Journal has improved continuously during the last year.
I now want to wish Wonca Europe good luck with the Journal, and I wish the new Chief Editor good luck with his important task. I find it very important that we have medical journals of good quality in primary healthcare, both for authors, who will be given the opportunity to publish their results, and for readers in order to renew their knowledge.
For me, it has meant quite a lot of work, and I now feel happy that I can leave the European Journal of General Practice to a new Editor-in-Chief. My work has been possible thanks to devoted Assistant Editors and to Ylva Haraldsdotter and the other very professional members of the publishing staff, who have worked in close co-operation with me, and also to Meta Wiborgh, member of the leading board of Wonca Europe, who has assisted me during my period as Chief Editor in a very helpful way.