A new beginning for Academic Medicine, our centenarian journal

Le résumé fourni par la source

Academic Medicine was first published as the Bulletin of the Association of American Medical Colleges in 1926. Over the past 100 years, the journal has been led by 10 editors, moved from quarterly to bimonthly to monthly publication, been renamed 3 times, and been indexed. It introduced new features and supplements, transitioned from paper-only to both paper and digital, and, this year, became digital-only. Over the past 10 years alone, we have evaluated many thousands of submissions; have had our publications read, downloaded, and cited hundreds of thousands of times; and have had millions of visits to our journal website. Academic Medicine has evolved in its scope to embrace the 5 interdependent missions of our field and the full complement of health professions.1,2 Our journal enables scholars to share their work and enables readers throughout the world to learn, critique, translate, and build upon that work. Over its first century, our journal has become a recognized platform for engaging learners, raising questions and encouraging valuable dialogue, strengthening standards of rigor and ethics, inspiring creativity, and fostering leadership in the field. A few moments in the life of the journal have particular significance and may hold the key to its durability. The purposeful reimagination and renaming of the journal from Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges to Journal of Medical Education in the 1950s to elevate medical education and then to Academic Medicine in 1989 to address the broader missions of academic medicine reflected a commitment to serve the field and its constituents and stakeholders more fully. Moving to a monthly publication cadence in the 1950s also helped bring greater visibility to the issues and scholarship of the field, helping to define a shared agenda and furthering a sense of community. Articles appearing in the journal were made available online in 2000, allowing publications to reach an international audience. The introduction of special submission categories, including Medicine and the Arts, Teaching and Learning Moments, Cover Art, AM Last Page, Innovation Reports, and Trainee Letters to the Editor, brought new authors and artists to our pages and, based on the number of page views and downloads for these features, clearly sparked the interest of our readers. The appointment of the Journal Oversight Committee in 2007 was also a vitally important moment in the history of the journal because it signified the editorial independence of Academic Medicine. Although it may seem an ordinary administrative event, the formal decision to ensure that the governance of the journal was “arm’s length” from its sponsoring organization, the Association of American Medical Colleges, affirmed the journal’s position as a journal of scholarly standing—a peer-reviewed journal led by members of the field, in the service of members of the field, accountable to members of the field. The principled approaches that our journal adopted in 2020 to minimize bias and strengthen editorial decision-making will, we hope, also prove to be a pivotal moment for the journal. One example is our layered approach to editorial decisions, which ensures that every submission has also been assessed by at least 2 editors and has received technical and administrative review from staff.3 A second example is the expansion of our editor team and editorial board to give us a broadened range of expertise and experience.4,5 A third example is our creation of new editorial policies, such as those related to the use of artificial intelligence tools by authors and reviewers6–8 and our implementation of the evolving guidelines developed by the Council on Publishing Ethics (COPE) related to identifying and responding to ethical issues that are encountered by editors in the day-to-day running of a journal.9 A further example, among many more, is our approach to cover art, which has evolved to become an international competition that is open to all and engages a panel of experts who provide evaluations of the creative works submitted. Each of these actions has been undertaken purposefully to bring greater rigor to our work and to redefine and advance the standards by which we fulfill our responsibilities. The journal’s increased efforts to build professional development opportunities and resources for members of our academic community represent another area of focus that we hope will have enduring value for the field. In 2020, we introduced a new assistant editor program providing an in-depth, hands-on experience with the editorial team of the journal.4,5 Assistant editors are selected through an open application process and volunteer their expertise and time over a 1- or 2-year period. More than just a “peek behind the curtain,” the program is intended to enable co-learning, teamwork, and mentorship and to build up a generation of future editors who will help steward the scholarship of our field. The journal hosts webinars, podcasts, and a digital newsletter—AM Express—and also provides resource materials for authors, peer reviewers, and readers. These offerings have had wide engagement, with, for instance, a 34% “open” rate of AM Express, which is sent to 20,000 readers, and nearly 350,000 downloads of our podcast to date. The move to an all-digital format, too, promises to be a key moment in the history of Academic Medicine. Becoming all-digital reflects a commitment to modernizing our processes and to positioning the journal to be fully and equitably accessible for our international community. At the same time, the all-digital format has the clear benefit of reducing the carbon footprint of our journal. Readers will be glad to know that the journal will still present compelling cover art in the digital format. As a brand-new centenarian, our journal has a fresh beginning. Our full editorial team looks to the future with anticipation and excitement, but also with a sense of gravity. The field of academic medicine exists to serve society, and its value is measured by the hard metrics of improved health for people, communities, and populations, and perhaps most importantly, for future generations.2,10 The field of academic medicine thus matters greatly, and by corollary, the ways in which our journal can help health professionals, scientists, educators, learners, and leaders to accomplish their weighty work matters, too. As we move forward together, Dear Reader, we will endeavor to continue to be your journal, the journal of our field and academic community, for the next 100 years. L.W. Roberts is editor-in-chief of Academic Medicine. The opinions expressed in this editorial do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the AAMC or its members.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.