Abstract
A cardiothoracic surgeon called me recently to discuss publishing a series of articles in JRSM. He wanted short pieces with clear messages. He wanted to take over a whole issue of the journal. I resisted. It isn't in the best interests of readers, I argued. JRSM has a multispecialty readership and it would be unfair to burden these Bohemian souls with a full edition on the performance of cardiothoracic surgeons. His retort, a reasonable one, was that cardiothoracic surgeons have been at the forefront of public engagement with performance data, and that other specialists would be interested. I still resisted, judging that a whole issue devoted to one theme was still too indulgent for a monthly journal.
Perhaps I'm wrong? Perhaps readers would prefer themed issues, like those more often seen in weekly journals, although even weekly journals tend to shy away from full themed issues for the reason I've mentioned. Nonetheless, it might be something to experiment with? A successful themed issue in any journal requires a good idea and a dedicated guest editor. Any readers who fulfil both of those criteria are invited to write in.
This issue, though, is something of a departure, and I'd welcome your feedback. Our clinical review on advances in motor neurone disease explains that the last decade has been one of major improvements in patient care and rapid scientific advances. 1 So much so that new therapies now seem possible. Much of this advance is based on genetic discoveries, making genetic as well as risk stratification more feasible. The clinical possibilities of these genetic advances are easily understood, but the departure for JRSM is this month's research paper on the detection of a human endogenous retrovirus protein in human tissues. 2 Chen Fei et al. explain that these retroviruses are believed to contribute to human evolution but scientists have struggled to detect them in specific human cells and tissues, a challenge that forms the basis of their JRSM paper. There are no immediate clinical implications of this research. Is it too far removed from the interests of JRSM readers or does opening your mind to a little science nourish and stimulate? I'd welcome your views.
Indeed, science is opening up with the rise of open access journals. Authors and readers need to instantly identify the type of journal that they are either submitting their article to or reading. Is it an open access journal or is it one that retains a traditional publishing model? JRSM has an open access companion publication that caters for articles that JRSM cannot accommodate but are of interest to clinicians. From 2014, the name of this companion journal will change from JRSM Short Reports to JRSM Open to better reflect the opportunities it offers authors for open access publishing. The nature and variety of articles published by JRSM Open will remain unchanged. 3