“That was the most fun I've ever had without laughing…”
2008; Elsevier BV; Volume: 69; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/j.gie.2008.12.001
ISSN1097-6779
Autores Tópico(s)Colorectal Cancer Screening and Detection
ResumoOver the past several years, my editorial team and I delivered the best scientifically sound and reliable information on the current practice and future of endoscopy.That was the most fun I've ever had without laughing…Alvy Singer (Woody Allen)in the romantic comedy Annie Hall (1977) The 1977 romantic comedy film Annie Hall, directed by Woody Allen, is one of his most popular films, and it won 4 Academy awards (Oscars). In the movie, Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is a neurotic comedian attempting to maintain a relationship with a seemingly silly but exuberant Annie (Diane Keaton). The quote, although referring to sex, reflects perfectly my feelings on being at the helm of GIE for the past 4 years. As I enter the last stretch of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief, I am tempted not only to reflect on the unique and multifaceted experiences of running the journal but also to draw some parallels with Allen's movie, which—even today—remains everyone's favorite. Alvy ends the film by musing about how love and relationships are something we all require despite their often painful and complex nature. Well, my relationship with GIE and, through that, with its readers, authors, reviewers, sponsors, associate editors, and other members of the editorial team, even the journal's owner (American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy) and publisher (Elsevier), was immensely rewarding, illuminating, often enchanting, occasionally controversial, and rarely traumatic. One cannot please everybody. In my mind, putting the reader first kept me in focus to deliver the best that I could; all I cared about—and I still do care about—was to make my colleagues, all the endoscopists around the globe, seek the pages—printed or digital—of GIE, read them, digest them, apply them to their daily practice, and then crave for the next issue to come for more enlightenment and more fun. Unless one is a movie trivia buff, they would not know that Allen's working title for the Annie Hall movie was Anhedonia, a psychoanalytic term for the inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events, which was obviously considered unmarketable and was abandoned. Certainly my years of tenure were exactly the opposite. My team and I aimed at not only pleasing but exciting our audience: gastroenterologists, endoscopists, surgeons, pediatricians, endoscopy nurses, trainees, even reporters, government agents, and the general public (our patients and their families). I believe that, over the past several years, my editorial team and I not only delivered the best scientifically sound and reliable information on the current practice and future of endoscopy, but also managed to engage our audience in an interactive relationship with monthly exchanges as letters to the editor, video clips, survey responses, authors' interviews, and, more recently, ichats. Since my first editorial, in January 2005, GIE has offered its readers many unique features: new and unique article types, such as the Under the Hood, Thinking Outside of the Box, and the Fellows' Corner series, that have entertained different groups of readers, the technically inclined, the forward-thinkers, and the young. Special supplements, such as the one on double-balloon endoscopy or the forthcoming one on endoscopic ultrasound, Special Symposia articles, such as the Kyoto workshop on colorectal neoplasia, White Papers on NOTES, and Special Articles on Research Methodology, have also enriched our pages and provided new and focused perspectives. Among the many GI journals, GIE was the first to introduce many more editorials per issue, each following the relevant original article (or articles) to which it referred and providing an immediate context to the reader, sometimes even bringing forth a pro and con perspective. Using Dr. G. S. Raju's palette, we also introduced the popular CME Exam series, occurring monthly, enticing the readers to test drive their knowledge, old and new, and giving them the chance to obtain CME credit. Over the past year, a new Fellows' Corner editor, Juan Carlos Bucobo, and 2 new Associate editors, Drs. John Inadomi and Todd Baron, have enriched our crew with new perspectives and talent. Paralleling the long-lasting popularity and impact of the 1977 movie Annie Hall, the popularity of our journal has increased dramatically, and its impact remains quite strong. Just between June 1, 2008 and October 12, 2008, GIE received 663 new submissions, 112 more than during the same period in 2007. This obviously reflects our astonishing increase in the Impact Factor, which has risen from 3.92 in 2005 to 5.88 in 2007, an increase of 50%, but also reflects an increasing number of submissions from many clinical research teams to the par-excellence GI endoscopy journal in the world. This moves us up to the number 6 position in the ranking of the top 20 journals in Gastroenterology and Hepatology when sorted by impact factor and based on 14,276 total citations for GIE, which is up from 12,944 in the year before. Our Immediacy Index, a measure of the rapidity of impact, also rose, from 2.442 to 2.765. Inevitably, such impact factor/immediacy index trends and the subsequent increase in submissions have brought some challenges to our editorial team. We have had to become increasingly more selective, with an acceptance rate currently at 26%, and have had to disappoint many authors with a rejection letter in order to maintain the excellent standards of journal quality for the benefit of our readers. And since we recognize the speed of electronic publication as compared to the printed one, we have introduced the Articles in Press, an online-early publication of accepted articles, allowing authors to see their work appear earlier than possible with the printed medium and our readers to experience the immediacy of our journal. GIE was the first among GI journals in putting together Capsule Summaries of Original Articles and New Methods. Through such highlighted summaries, the casual or busy reader may get a glimpse of what is in GIE each month, get tempted to read more, or just retain the basic, bullet-like message, as information for further use. Issue after issue, the ever-popular Focal Points series, edited and commented upon by Dr. Larry Brandt's mastery, continues to illuminate vignettes from our daily practices and synthesize clinical acumen with endoscopic and radiological imaging as well as historical concepts. Since then, most, if not all, GI journals have followed our example in all these domains, again to our readers' benefit. GIE has established itself as the journal to watch…. The movie Annie Hall distinguishes itself from conventional film realism because its characters often break and address the camera directly. Allen frequently makes use of split-screen imagery, double exposure, and subtitles to expand the characters' real thoughts, instead of using conventional film dialogue. In one classic scene, Alvy, standing in a queue with Annie, serendipitously hears someone behind him commenting on Marshall McLuhan's work and leaves the line to speak to the camera directly. The man then responds to the camera, while Allen pulls McLuhan himself from a movie posterboard to settle the dispute. GIE has broken ground and obstacles of communication with the introduction—again the first among GI journals—of the Podcast series, now strong with 1700 listeners per month, which brings down the barriers to the senses, allowing our readers to hear instead of read the news in our field. Furthermore, like in Allen's Annie Hall, GIE has broken the “fourth wall,” the imaginary wall in front of the stage in film language, by introducing the Authors' Interviews series, where video clips appear together with the journal's articles. By presenting impromptu discussions between authors and members of our editorial team, such clips bring the faces and the thoughts of the research teams to our readers, thereby bringing them behind the scenes, so to speak. Much of Annie Hall is made of people talking, walking or sitting and talking, seeing the shrink and talking, going to lunch or making love and talking, or talking to the camera. Over the past several years of my tenure, GIE has been changed to make our audiences read, hear, even view, and have them talking, to us, to each other, and to their patients about our content. Others have been looking at GIE and have also been talking and following our example as a modern, innovative, and respected publication. Over the coming year, our last, we will be talking with our “transition team” and the new, soon-to-be-elected Editor-in-Chief, and everyone will be talking about GIE for many years to come. Editorially yours
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