The editorship of the Revista Española de Cirugía Ortopédica y Traumatología is a position appointed by the President of SECOT. It has been two years since this Editorial Committee and I as Editor took up the challenge of the editorship of RECOT. Our beloved Journal. Few challenges are more exciting. To be honest, these two years have not been long enough for me, have not been enough time I think, for such an important task, but it is also true that time periods are important in the course of events.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome and congratulate Yaiza Lopiz. Yaiza has been RECOT's Deputy Editor and is a Senior Lecturer at the Complutense University of Madrid. There is no better person to carry out the future challenges of RECOT and I have no doubt that she will be able to meet them.
In 2020 José Cordero, under the presidency of Enrique Guerado, left the management of the journal with a clear and strong commitment to Open Access, which has been an absolute success. We have tripled the number of downloads and uses of our journal, which is, after all, the objective of any scientific publication. That the works have the widest possible dissemination and that they contribute to the enrichment of the scientific community. The works are enriching in both senses, on the one hand, looking back and evaluating what we have done and the results is of great transcendence and sometimes of sincerity and humility, and on the other hand, communicating or recommending certain treatments or surgical techniques to our colleagues is of vital importance. The peer review process guarantees a limpid, independent and blind assessment.
First of all, I would like to thank Luis Ramos for his trust and all my predecessors for the excellent work that has made our journal a reference in Spain and in Latin America. The editorial process is not easy and the work of Editors and Reviewers is commendable, it involves a great deal of work, many long hours and solid dedication in an absolutely altruistic manner. However, we have a major challenge ahead of us: to achieve the impact factor. This should be our medium-term goal, to access the ESCI platform (“EmergingSourcesCitationIndex”), i.e., those journals likely to have the coveted Impact Factor. Journals and authors are “slaves” to bibliometrics. This is due to the publishing of highly citable papers and increasing the visibility and dissemination of the journal, with it being everywhere and in all possible formats, and with social networks2 playing an important role in these new formats.
All change generates unease. It is absolutely proven that human beings feel comfortable in familiar situations and over which they believe they have a certain degree of control, and that change generates anxiety, nervousness and restlessness. Change in itself is neither good nor bad. It is also clear that change has a positive effect, increases our level of alertness and boosts enthusiasm.
Seventy-five years have passed since the creation of our Journal (previously called Revista de Ortopedia y Traumatología), in 1944, by Professor Sanchís Olmos. It began as the official organ of the Spanish Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology and is still the main Spanish journal of the Specialty. Its name was maintained until December 2007, when it was renamed Revista Española de Cirugía Ortopédica y Traumatología (RECOT). This change marked the beginning of a new era and new and exciting challenges under the leadership of Enrique Gil Garay, Enrique Guerado and Joan Carles Monllau. Years of intense work and great changes that I had the opportunity to experience due to my presence on the SECOT Board; and which were rewarded with the indexing in 2012 under the presidency of José Ramón Rodríguez Altónaga. This marked a milestone in the future of RECOT1.
A large number of colleagues, many of them anonymous, have contributed to such an important event and we would like to acknowledge them. We should remember the editors of the Journal since its foundation, the members of the editorial committees, the reviewers and the traumatologists who have entrusted their work to RECOT and who, with varying degrees of success, have undergone the editorial process without becoming discouraged. The readers have also played a major role in this story. As have all the reviewers and editors, whose selfless and commendable work will never be sufficiently appreciated. The peer review editorial process guarantees an anonymous review and ensures the scientific quality of the published papers, compliance with the ethical standards of publication and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Thank you all.
What does the change to “Open Access” mean and what does it imply? “Open Access” means immediate access, without registration, subscription or payment requirements (i.e., without restrictions) to scientific or any other type of digital material, mainly research articles. In our case, to specialised scientific journals. It implies greater visibility and, consequently, a greater impact of our scientific work1
The aim of any scientific publication should be to share professional experiences with the medical community and to present the results of research in an objective manner. For the benefit of society, the wider the dissemination, the better. In more than 75 years of history, we have gone from a printed journal, with great difficulty in referencing papers, to an open journal with the capacity to reach any corner of the planet. This greater exposure and visibility not only exist today in the publishing world, but also in the changes that have taken place in our society with the explosion of social networks and digital environments. Another exciting challenge, such as access to the ESCI (EmergingSourcesCitationIndex) database as a prior and necessary step to obtain an impact factor, or the improvement of response and publication times, always without reducing scientific quality. We will achieve this together.
