Note from the Editor-in-Chief

Article Outline

• Copyright

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend – come inside, come inside. - Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

In the summer of 2008, I met with Roger Emery at JFK Airport in New York, while both of us were between flights, to discuss my forthcoming role as the new Editor of this Journal. At the time Roger was one of the European Associate Editors of JSES. I outlined my plans for the Journal to him, including my concern that it was important that we keep the Journal as internationally based as possible, something which Roger and the European editors also felt was important. To that end, I had planned to begin a new editorial position, that of Deputy International Editor. While we dined in a sort of style at the Au Bon Pain downstairs in the international terminal, I asked Roger if he would agree to take on this task, and he did so.

However, because of academic and time constraints, Roger informed me at the time that he could only do this for one year, a year now coming to an end. Roger has launched this new position admirably, serving as a liaison from the American-based editorial offices and the European and International editors and reviewers. He has recently received a new appointment to a personal chair at Imperial College in England, giving him another reason to step down, but for which we congratulate him, and wish him well as he moves on. And Roger, I sincerely thank you for all your assistance in the past year.

Moving up to the position of Deputy International Editor will be Prof. Dr. Frank Gohlke, who is based in Würzburg, Germany, where he is head of the Shoulder & Elbow Unit at the University of Würzburg. Frank trained at the University of Würzburg, then completed fellowships in hand surgery and surgery of rheumatoid arthritis, as well as a shoulder and elbow fellowship with Michel Mansat and Gilles Walch in France. He has been a reviewer for JSES since 1994, a regional editor since 2001, and a European co-editor beginning in 2004. In the past year, he has done an excellent job as one of our Associate Editors and I know he will be an able replacement for Roger in this position.

With Frank moving up from Associate Editor, this requires another International Editor to move into an Associate Editorial position. The new Associate Editor will be Nicole Pouliart, MD, PhD, based in Brussels, Belgium. Since 2005, Dr. Pouliart has been head of the clinic for shoulder and elbow surgery in the Sportstraumatology and Arthroscopic Surgery Section of the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a Clinical Professor for Anatomy and for Orthopaedics and Traumatology on the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to follow our many reviewers who assist so ably in bringing publication of this Journal to fruition. Many of our reviewers are outstanding, but as with any position, certain ones stand out. Nicole Pouliart has been one of these, and my only concern about her becoming an Associate Editor is that I will now lose her fine reviews. But she deserves this, I know she'll do a tremendous job for us in her new role, and we will move on.

This is the sixth and final issue of my first year as Editor-in-Chief. There have been a number of changes during this year, and hopefully, these have improved the Journal and made your study of it more pleasurable and educational. We are also planning some less visible changes in 2010, which will mostly deal with some of the editing processes, which we hope will decrease any tendencies towards bias in the reviewing process.

But the biggest change for 2010 will be the number of issues. Since the début of this Journal in 1991, it has always had six issues published yearly. In 2007 we received about 460 submitted articles, with 544 in 2008, and we anticipate about 600 in 2009. With this submission inflation (or is that submisflation, or something like that?), it has become obvious that we have room for more issues, and in 2010, the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery will begin to publish eight issues yearly; actually, next year there will be nine. We are planning a special edition to be published around the time of the AAOS Annual Meeting, which will be an issue focusing on techniques and the published articles will also have accompanying videos that will be available on our website as we try to move to a more interactive journal. It is too early to say if this will be an annual feature, but we do hope to use the website more in the future.

So welcome back, my friends, and stay tuned as you come inside.