As of last November, it has been more than 12 years since the team led by Prof. P. Parrilla, including Professors Manuel Pera, Sebastiano Biondo and Pablo Ramírez, began their exciting adventure of heading the course of our Journal. Over the course of these years, many things have come to pass, resulting from both the impeccable hard work of the Editorial Committee as well as the evolution of the scientific publication world. Professor Parrilla's team has reached all the milestones that any scientific journal could only hope to reach. The Journal was indexed and included in top bibliographic search engines, including the much-desired Pubmed and Journal Citation Reports. Meanwhile, the impact factor has been able to be determined, which has continued to increase and has reached an impact factor of 1 in 2016, with expectations for an even higher impact factor in 2017.
The important effect of the digital revolution on the scientific publishing industry has also resulted in certain changes: the publication is only offered in digital format and not on paper, which is a more current and ecological choice motivated by the considerable cost of the printed version. However, the digital era has also favored a spectacular increase in the visibility of the Journal, evidence of which are the hundreds of thousands of annual consultations of the electronic version (617243 from January to November, 2016), as well as a high number of downloads of both the English and Spanish versions. Prof. Parrilla and his team should feel satisfied with what they have accomplished and enjoy a deserved rest after a job well done. Nonetheless, they will be a tough act to follow for the new Editorial Committee, a challenge that we eagerly yet humbly accept. It is our intention that the Journal continue to evolve with the times and the needs of today's community of surgeons.
The current editorial team is comprised of 5 well-trained editors and a methodology expert, who will make every effort possible to carefully select and publish the highest quality articles submitted to the Journal for publication. Initially, there is no plan for radical changes to the structure of the Journal, but it is our desire to favor an editorial line based on current research and scientific quality. At the same time, and following a policy to provide editorial articles of interest, especially those related with articles published in the same issue, we aim to collaborate with prestigious national and international surgeons. Furthermore, reviews and special articles are fundamental journal elements. To this end, we need, and have requested, the collaboration of the Divisions of the Asociación Española de Cirujanos (AEC, Spanish Association of Surgeons) to submit high-quality articles of this type fundamentally aimed at their application in daily surgical practice.
The rate of rejection of the Journal has continued to be high, but this has undoubtedly resulted in better scientific rates due to the higher quality of the original articles. Nonetheless, the number of original articles submitted to the Journal increases each year, which is proof that authors value this fact. Logically, any scientist would want their contribution to be assessed and accepted by the journal with the highest recognitions and bibliographic impact, but Cirugía Española, the official publication of the AEC, also requires the generosity of national authors to send in their best articles in order to maintain and increase the Journal's quality and interest.
In is our intention to reduce the number of case reports and images of the month, but we want to create greater protagonism for the Journal as a multimedia model, so we therefore propose to include articles complemented by a video or, simply, the Video of the Month. These videos could also be viewed through a specific channel of the Journal on YouTube. This would logically require the publication guidelines to be revised as well as the Editorial Committee to be updated.
We are in the era of immediate communication, and the Journal should take advantage of social media to favor the diffusion of scientific knowledge. There is already dynamic social media activity through Twitter and Facebook, thanks to a synergic activity between Elsevier and AEC, but here collaboration is also needed from Association members and readers to help disseminate the information considered to be of greatest interest through social networks. We should also consider the start of a new model of communication through visual abstracts, a resource that broadens and facilitates rapid comprehension and dissemination of new ideas and concepts published in the Journal.
At the same time, dear Reader, special mention must be made of a task which we understand to be the duty of members of a scientific society and entails great effort: the mission of our reviewers. Reviewers perform an activity that is worth its weight in gold, as the undertaking of reviewing articles, at first an honor and later a heavy load to bear in the context of our many daily responsibilities, is a critical element of the editorial process.
In closing, we would simply like to end this editorial article by thanking the outgoing team for their monumental work. We assume the responsibility that the AEC has deposited in our hands, and we request the collaboration of AEC members by submitting their best articles and by assisting in the review process of original manuscripts. Finally, we would like to express the willingness of the new editorial team to increase and improve the quality indicators of the Journal, all the while trying to adapt it to the rapidly-changing world of scientific publishing, which is essential for our final objective: scientific communication among surgeons.
Please cite this article as: Targarona EM, Frasson M, Balibrea JM, López-Cano M, Ríos A, Ferrer J. Cirugía Española: evolución y continuidad. Cir Esp. 2017;95:243–244.
