Editorial: Our last issue

Editorial

This issue marks the end of a chapter with the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for members of the Editorial team, members of the Editorial Board and for some of our Reviewers who have served the Journal for more than 30 years.

Zara Whitlock was a post-graduate psychology student working with the late Professor Denis Hawkins on motivation in contraceptive usage in the 1970s. She became involved with the launch of a new medical journal coming from the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Hammersmith Hospital in 1980. She took over the running of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology office in 1986 and has remained faithfully committed to running the Journal and all its administration for a series of Editors and various changes in publishers. Clearing her office in Ham House of all the business files and numerous connections from all around the world will be both physically and emotionally challenging. Certainly, I could not have performed as Editor without Zara's commitment, and I suspect that was true for Harry Gordon, and ultimately Denis Hawkins when it all started.

Harry Gordon was a clinician Obstetrician and Gynaecologist on the staff at the Hammersmith, was on the original Editorial Board and I suspect played a balancing role against Denis Hawkins’ academic position. He was aware what clinicians and in particular trainees, would read in a Journal and helped to keep everyone's feet on the ground.

Tom Bloomfield and Andrew Dawson were junior members of staff all those years back, but have loyally supported the Journal over the years, and particularly recently when they assumed Associate Editorship commitments when we joined electronic submission in 2008, actively recruited Reviewers from near and far, and did much to put papers into shape for publication. As they have largely retired from NHS practice and enjoyed the opportunities of holidays and relaxation, they have kept the flow of papers in the system, and helped many junior authors achieve those early publications so important for their CVs.

When Denis Hawkins wrote his first Editorial for Issue 1, Volume 1 in 1980, he stated:

‘Introduction of this journal has been based on consideration of the needs of the majority of those who work in our field – clinical obstetricians and gynaecologists. At the same time we have thought of the requirements of others who contribute to obstetric care and to the management of medical conditions peculiar to women. These include neonatal paediatricians, those engaged in family planning work, physicians and surgeons with interests in the problems of pregnancy, senior midwifery and nursing personnel and pathologists dealing with the laboratory help needed for the modern practice of obstetrics and gynaecology. We shall publish original articles of interest to all those individuals, and include work which contributes to clinical practice as well as papers presenting advances in scientific knowledge. …

‘There is a need for a British outlet for original work which serves an educational function for authors as well as those who read their papers. This will be achieved by editors who will correspond with potential contributors and who will return submissions, repeatedly if necessary, until they present logical and scientifically valid work with brevity and clarity …’

The bold font is mine, but acknowledges an ethos from that first issue that the Editorial team would help people to publish. We have persevered with Case Reports when many Journals have excluded them – they make no contribution to a Journal's Impact Factor – but they are often how we achieve our earlier publications. I know my team have written and re-written many papers for eventual authors, and thank them for that commitment. If there is advice for authors in the future, I would urge you to scan to see what form and format of papers any journal accepts, and then closely follow the ‘Instructions to Authors’; it continues to amaze me the number of authors who cannot read or follow these instructions. If English is not your first language, then find someone who can read the Instructions and then read your paper to ensure that it complies with requirements and makes sense. I suspect that in the future, it will be difficult to find editors who will commit so much time to re-writing, and it makes it easier to reject a paper if the Instructions have not been followed.

The next group of supporters that I wish to thank are the many Reviewers, some of whom have loyally performed assessment of articles over many years and since their time with the department at Hammersmith. Some papers are difficult to place with a perfectly matched Reviewer, and many have read papers outside their main area of expertise before acceptance or rejection. We have been served by both national and international Reviewers; I know some will be grateful that I will no longer be pursuing them through their in-box with yet another paper to read.

Denis Hawkins was frequently looking for the best publisher for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and over the years, there have been many Publishers. I wish to acknowledge the role of Informa – the distancing of a Publication Department in New York and some of the other challenges have not been as difficult as they might otherwise have been.

Finally, what is to happen to medical publishing. Sadly, the familiar orange cover is likely to disappear as papers and journals are distributed electronically; this is an advantage for your bookcase or desk space, but I belong to a generation that would rather pick up a journal or book to read rather than peering at a screen. The Editorial Board has attempted to resist the disappearance of hard copy, and urged that individual subscriptions, particularly for young trainees and older retirees, are not replaced by institutional subscriptions. Medical publishing is becoming increasingly competitive – you only need to review how Impact Factors wax and wane – and it is necessary to move with the times. The competition of Open Access journals that are freely distributed to all readers but require the author to pay for the publishing will threaten those journals where subscription fees deter potential subscribing institutions. The academic incentives or desires for individuals to publish mean that increasingly, editors and reviewers are on the look-out for plagiarism and dual publications; software is now available but not used for every paper at present. The punishments for such transgressions need to be appropriate for those who should know better, but protect those who have copied another source and failed to acknowledge it. Similarly, it is hoped that a statement of ‘Declaration of Interest’ will identify those with a commercial or other gain to follow publication.

For myself, my first publication came from research from my intercalated Bachelor of Medical Science, and reported osteoporosis in women and with ageing – at that time I had little idea of the importance of menopausal changes for women, or what medical publishing would mean to me. I still have a collection of projects to be written up, so cannot see myself stopping writing but there is some relief that I will not need to proofread many more issues before retirement.