Welcome to the first issue of The Journal for Visual Communication in Medicine for 2018. This is also my first issue as chief editor, taking over from Carly Dakin who has worked on the journal for over 10 years. I would like to thank Carly for doing such a wonderful job in maintaining and raising the journal’s profile as a world class publication, showcasing the diversity of our disciplines, and I hope to continue to do to the same.
Beyond this, I aim to increase awareness of the journal within the worldwide medical and medical visualisation communities. To this end we have appointed a new social media editor, Annie Campbell, who has been posting via our Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Jviscomm/), and Twitter (https://twitter.com/jviscomm) channels, as well as through the journal’s blog. Hopefully you have been enjoying our new Author Interview series launched towards the end of 2017 on the blog, where we spoke to several authors of recent papers to find out more about their work. If not, you can check it out here: https://jviscomm.wordpress.com/. By raising the journal’s profile, I hope to attract both new readers as well as contributors – so if you are also new to the journal then welcome!
I believe that I will be the first editor to be a member of the Institute of Medical Illustrators, the Medical Artists Association and the Association Européenne des Illustrateurs Médicaux et Scientifiques (AEIMS). I hope to encourage individuals from all of these organisations, and beyond, to be involved with the journal through submitting papers, be they original research articles, case studies, professional development or reviews. You can find guidance on submitting a paper here: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=ijau20&page=instructions.
Citing published research brings a strength to our arguments and is vitally important to our roles as professionals and experts in our respective fields and helps the development of our profession as a whole. I am excited to work with the rest of the editorial board in making sure the journal remains relevant and useful to our membership and beyond.