Fifteen years ago, I was offered and accepted the position of Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Investigative Surgery (JIS). It was an honor to serve the Academy of Surgical Research (ASR) in this unique and privileged position. Today, looking back at the entire experience, I have a distinct feeling of pride due to the opportunity to have searched for excellence in surgical scholarship and research.
I believe the surgical scholarship of the JIS was enhanced because of the continued effort to strive for excellence. Some works were superior to begin with, but many required careful development. Structured guidance by many experienced reviewers provided improved surgical scholarship on the path to publication.
Throughout my editor's tenure, I sought to encourage the publication of scientific works of merit based on elements of good methodological design and well-conceived research. The seal of surgical scholarship was given by the actual publication. The JIS is a peer-reviewed journal cited by Pubmed, a database of medical citations and abstracts (MEDLINE) maintained by the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.
As one attempts to define the level of surgical scholarship, it is clear that it is related to the quality of research conducted. Great research partnered with quality writing allows the authors to showcase their work in journals with a high citation index. Over the past fifteen years the citation index for JIS has improved from 0.473 in 2001, to 1.0 in 2015.
I know that the JIS will continue to advance and garner respect because it will publish works with great research questions, studied by superior methodology, supported with clear statistics and meritorious writing.
We are very fortunate at the ASR, and Taylor & Francis, to have a surgeon researcher of the academic and scholarly stature of Marc D. Basson, who began as the new Editor-in-Chief of the JIS on August 1, 2016. I have known Dr. Basson for many years, not only as member of the editorial board of this Journal, but as a surgical colleague at the College of Human Medicine of Michigan State University. Marc is a superb clinician, surgical researcher and intimately involved with surgical scholarship.
It is with great satisfaction that I welcome Dr. Basson to the family of this Journal since I firmly believe that surgical scholarship and research will be taken to higher levels of excellence during his editorship. I also take this opportunity to thank my editorial board and a great number of reviewers who made my work more efficient as they improve the quality of this publication.
I send my best regards to all surgical scholars and researchers.