WHEN I FIRST assumed leadership of the ARCHIVES in January 1984, it had been in continuous publication for over 101 years since its first issue in October 1882. It was then, as it remains now 20 years later, the journal with the highest Science Citation Impact Factor presenting clinical investigation and the broad spectrum of information and opinions relevant to the practice of medical and surgical dermatology.
That having been said, the subjective experience is much more difficult to describe than the data would suggest. When you start a job like editing you never know where you are going to take it or where it's going to take you. My view of the clinical, academic, and investigative world in which we live is very different now than it was 20 years ago and much of this has been reflected in the subjects as well as mode of presentation that I have chosen for publication on these pages. Our specialty is now even stronger in its scientific underpinnings and broader and more accomplished through the emergence and incorporation of procedural dermatology into the mainstream of our specialty.