Now that a year has passed since assuming the position of Editor of JAMA Surgery, I would like to convey some of our accomplishments to the readers, authors, and peer reviewers of the journal. First, one of our main missions this past year was to reduce the time from acceptance to online publication. We have succeeded with our goal, as the time from acceptance to online publication is now approximately 2 months, the lowest it has been in many years. We have accomplished this while maintaining a low peer reviewer turnaround time of only 10 days. Our overall manuscript acceptance rate for 2015 was 25.8%, with an acceptance rate of 10.2% for original submissions and 29% for research letters (Table). I am also pleased to report that the overall number of submissions has increased by 18.7% from 2014 to 2015, a continuing trend.
Another accomplishment is our extended reach through social media. Amalia Cochran, MD, Web and Social Media Editor, has led the charge to increase the journal’s presence on Twitter and Facebook. JAMA Surgery currently has more than 12 000 Twitter followers, which is more than any of the other general surgery journals, and the journal has close to 4000 Facebook likes. Combined with the visits to the journal’s website, recipients of weekly electronic tables of contents, and our print distribution, the reach of JAMA Surgery is very large.
The creation of the new article types has been a success. Under the leadership of Gerard Doherty, MD, Review Editor, JAMA Surgery now publishes an evidence-based review on common topics of interest to our readers each month. Under the leadership of Justin Dimick, MD, Surgical Innovation Editor, the journal has been publishing one Surgical Innovation article each month.
JAMA Surgery also expanded the CME and MOC we offer our readers during 2015. We now offer 3 credit hours of CME each month that all count for MOC.
Most importantly, I would like to thank the readers, authors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members for contributing to the journal. Through your support, we aim to fulfill our mission “to promote the art and science of surgery by publishing relevant peer-reviewed research to help surgeons optimize patient care” and serve “as a forum for discussion of issues pertinent to surgery, such as the education and training of the surgical workforce, quality improvement, and the ethics and economics of healthcare delivery.”
Corresponding Author: Melina R. Kibbe, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 676 N St Clair St, Ste 650, Lurie 11-107, Chicago, IL 60611 (mkibbe@northwestern.edu).
Published Online: February 17, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2016.0047.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.