New paths

A new year is here, and with it the hope that we all hold of a better quality of life and greater well-being for all of us. We have hopes for a fairer, more equitable society, a better healthcare system and, in particular, better mental health for Colombians. These are sometimes utopian ideas or just dreams, but what would become of us without them and if we did not keeping working to attain them.

Colombian Psychiatry must rethink its aims and endeavour to consolidate itself as a high-quality scientific community; the lines our work follows need to be aimed at achieving clear objectives in matters such as training human talent in healthcare with skills in mental health that can then achieve an impact on the community. We need to consolidate post-graduate psychiatry courses in this country to train specialists who will then work not only on an individual basis in traditional clinical practice, but who will also have leadership skills and be involved in political and administrative management so that we may eventually have a national mental health plan that is implemented and fulfils its purposes. An association that finally includes and consolidates Colombian psychiatrists as a collective so that we can address national issues such as post-conflict situations, gender-based violence, child abuse, drug abuse and other equally important problems. These three elements will be vital in view of the alarming indicators seen in a nationwide survey that was recently conducted and various types of national problems, as mentioned above.

The Colombian Association of Psychiatrists and its Board of Directors, the publications committee, and specifically the Colombian Journal of Psychiatry, continue in their commitment to ongoing education and endeavour to ensure the academic excellence of their members. The number of articles that are submitted for review continues to grow exponentially and the quality has improved considerably; we are now seeing increasing participation by Iberoamerican collaborators. Our inclusion in the world's most important scientific database, Medline, has undoubtedly contributed to this, with the help of the publishing house Elsevier. Another great dream has been realised with the publication of this first issue of 2017: its entire contents are published in English. The advantages are not only that it will increase the visibility and citability of authors whose scientific articles are published in our journal, but also that we are now part of the English-speaking scientific community. In other words, we are opening the door to involvement in a scientific world that will lead us to new challenges.

I hope you enjoy this issue.