Vascular Medicine 2020: State of the journal

Though hard to believe, it has been over 6 years since the Editorial Office of Vascular Medicine (VMJ) moved from Boston to Cleveland, Ohio and received a detailed ‘sign-out’ from our predecessors Dr Mark Creager, our prior Editor-in-Chief, and Managing Editor, Joanne Normandin. ¹ We think this ‘mid-career’ point of our Cleveland-based Editorial Office represents an opportune time to update our journal readership and Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM) members on the current status of our journal, progress with regard to key metrics, and current areas of focus.

Editorial leadership

We have recently commissioned or (for many) recommissioned our Editorial Board for a 3-year term (2020–2022). Our Editorial Board, including its Associate and Section Editors, now numbers 89 members. We have worked to broaden the discipline/subspecialty representation of our Editorial Board to include expertise in all vascular clinical disciplines as well as basic and translational science. We’ve also expanded the diversity of the Board to include more women (25 currently) and international representatives from Canada, UK, France, Ireland, and the Philippines. Our Editorial Board serve as core reviewers and Guest Editors for VMJ, advocates for the journal at the national level, and a vital source for feedback, ideas, and strategic advice to the Editorial Office. We could not function without our strong Editorial Board, and we thank them for their service.

Our Associate and Section Editors do the yeoman’s work of VMJ in partnership with the Editorial Office. Our Associate Editors shepherd manuscripts through the peer review process and participate in our biweekly conference calls to discuss peer review of papers and make editorial decisions. Their time is provided on an entirely volunteer basis, and our profound gratitude goes to them all: Drs Ehrin Armstrong, Scott Cameron, Umberto Campia, Theresa Carman, Will Hiatt, and Esther Kim. We would like to give a special acknowledgement to Dr Esther Kim who is serving her third consecutive term as an Associate Editor. Also, we’d like to express profound thanks to Dr Will Hiatt – he has served VMJ since its first issue in 1996 and has been an Associate Editor for almost 20 years! For the past 6 years, he has enriched our calls and educated all of us with his wisdom and insights on clinical trial design and research methodology and analysis. Will is also just an amazing all-around human being and a joy to know.

In 2020, we have introduced a few new Section Editors. Dr Daniela Kadian-Dodov takes over as the Images Section Editor, and Dr Alec Schmaier has picked up the social media reigns. Drs Natalie Evans and Elizabeth Ratchford continue in their roles as Editors of the Vascular Disease Patient Information Pages, Dr Aditya Sharma continues as our CME Editor, and Dr Sue Duval continues as our Statistical Consultant.

Manuscript submissions and decisions

We have seen significant growth in the number of manuscripts submitted annually to VMJ since our transition in 2014. Indeed, the number of submissions from 2013 to 2019 increased by 82% (from 264 to 480). For so many reasons, 2020 has been an unusual year (Figure 1). As of July 29, 2020, we had already received 370 manuscripts, putting us on track to well over 500 manuscripts this year. We think this increase in activity may be partly attributed to a change in workload during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we also hope it reflects broader recognition of the quality of the work published in VMJ as well as the increasing impact and prominence of our papers in the cardiovascular medicine arena. Tracking with the growing number of submissions, we have become more selective in the manuscripts we accept for publication. Our acceptance rate for the past few years has hovered at ~ 20%, with a lower rate in 2019 (Figure 2). In an effort to ensure a timely peer review for our authors and to respect the competing time demands of our reviewers, we have worked to implement a process of rapid initial editorial review for all papers submitted to VMJ. During 2019, approximately 40% of papers deemed unlikely to move forward to publication in VMJ were rapidly reviewed and returned to authors for submission elsewhere, generally within 3–5 business days.

Figure 1.

Annual manuscript submissions to Vascular Medicine (2012 – July 29, 2020).

Figure 2.

Vascular Medicine annual acceptance and immediate rejection rates (2013 – June 8, 2020).

2014–2019 accomplishments

We are proud of a number of accomplishments of VMJ during the past 6 years, including several new features that have become successful components of the journal. Our Vascular Disease Patient Information Pages, edited by Drs Natalie Evans and Elizabeth Ratchford, have covered a broad range of topics ranging from atherosclerotic risk factors to common vascular problems to uncommon and rare vascular disorders. In 2019, we published patient pages on travel-related venous thromboembolism, electronic cigarettes, and spontaneous coronary artery dissection, among others.^2–4 We have received feedback from vascular medicine specialists and clinicians from other disciplines with appreciation for these useful tools, all freely downloadable at http://journals.sagepub.com/vmjpatientpage .

Another proud accomplishment is the initiation of a journal-based CME program sponsored by the Society for Vascular Medicine and in partnership with the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Led by Dr Aditya Sharma, this program offers CME for reading select review articles or participating in a twice-yearly Twitter journal club (#VascMedJC). Up to 6 hours of AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and 6 Maintenance of Certification (MOC) II points are available for free each year. More information about CME articles and the Twitter journal club are available on the SVM website at vascularmed.org/VMJ-CME .

In 2018, SVM and VMJ initiated its inaugural Mark A Creager Prize for Research Excellence in honor of our founding Editor-in-Chief. Each year the awardee is chosen as most meritorious among all original research manuscripts published in our journal by a panel of Editorial Board members and based upon outstanding scientific quality, novelty, and potential for impact in the field. To date, three awards have been given, most recently to Dr Abayomi O Oyenuga and colleagues for their manuscript entitled ‘Association of Life’s Simple 7 with reduced clinically manifest abdominal aortic aneurysm: The ARIC study’. ⁵ Based upon the precedent of our two prior Creager Prize winners, we anticipate that this paper will be a highly cited contribution to the vascular literature.^6,7

We have also worked to make VMJ a highly relevant forum for discussion of key issues that affect the vascular community. Most recently, we have published national and international consensus statements on behalf of SVM, including the 2019 international consensus on FMD (in partnership with the European Society for Hypertension) and the 2020 consensus on Doppler waveform nomenclature (in partnership with the Society for Vascular Ultrasound) published in this issue of our journal.^8,9

Last, but not least, we initiated the SVM Communication Pages, also known as the ‘blue pages’. This section serves as a forum for updates on societal initiatives, a spotlight on junior and senior members of the Society, and gives attention to timely topics in our field.^10,11

Content dissemination and impact

We continue to focus significant effort to disseminating our journal content throughout the world. With the assistance of our publisher, SAGE, our online journal presence ( https://journals.sagepub.com/home/vmj ) and the resultant number of journal downloads has grown over the years (Figure 3). We have increased the number of editorials, which provide context and commentary for original research articles. We have also taken advantage of the growth of social media to garner interest in the papers we publish. We give special thanks to our three social media editors since 2014 – Drs Anne Albers, Geoff Barnes, and now Alec Schmaier – for starting and nurturing our journal Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/VMJ_SVM), which now has more than 4000 followers and has published almost 2000 Tweets.

Figure 3.

Vascular Medicine annual downloads (2011–2019).

Together with our increased number of submissions, the selectivity of our peer review process, new initiatives described above, and these efforts to disseminate our content, we have seen a steady increase in a number of key journal publication metrics, including our total number of annual citations, impact factor (Figure 4), and immediacy index, among others. We have set a goal to take our VMJ impact factor to > 3.0 in the years to come, and hopefully we have laid the foundation for this achievement down the road.

Figure 4.

Vascular Medicine impact factor trend (2001–2018).

2020–2022 initiatives

We are pleased with the progress of VMJ, and we will continue our efforts to increase the journal’s global impact in vascular medicine. We recognize that there is much for us to do in the years to come. As our number of submissions has significantly increased over the past 6 years, we are considering expanding the annual page allowance with our publisher to allow for more articles to be published.

One specific goal we have undertaken during the next 3 years is to strengthen the pipeline of our journal’s Editorial leadership by mentoring future Associate Editors. We have just launched the inaugural Vascular Medicine Next Generation Editorial Board program with five terrific future leaders of our journal: Pulikit Chadhury, MD (University of Iowa); Amy Harwood, PhD (Coventry University); Stanislav Henkin, MD (Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center); Qurat-ul-ain Jelani, MD (Yale University); Mary Whipple, RN, PhD (University of Colorado). We have developed a 3-year curriculum, currently underway, that emphasizes the development of skills in peer review, authorship, and editing, including publication ethics and journal management (Table 1). We are enjoying our work with this amazing group of young vascular academicians, and their enthusiasm has brought new energy to VMJ.

Table 1.

Vascular Medicine Next Generation Editorial Board planned 3-year curriculum (2020–2022).

Year	Curriculum focus	Objectives and milestones
Year 1	Peer Review Skills	• Didactics/seminar(s): Introduction to SVM + VMJ, peer review process, journal operations, publication ethics • Review up to six manuscripts with feedback from Editors • Review COPE materials and complete e-learning modules followed by group discussion • Attend Editorial Board meeting(s) • Provide feedback on course materials
Year 2	Journal Editor Skills	• Didactics/seminar(s): Medical journal editor skills, journal metrics • Review up to six manuscripts with feedback from Editors • Review ICMJE guidelines • Develop call for papers for focused issue • Attend Twitter journal club • Participate in Creager Prize selection committee • Attend Editor conference calls and present papers as assigned • Review publisher’s report • Attend Editorial Board meeting(s) • Provide feedback on course materials
Year 3	Senior Author Skills Associate Editor/Editor-in-Chief Skills	• Didactics/seminar(s): Guest Editor skills, authorship skills • Serve as Guest Editor on two manuscripts • Write editorial for one manuscript with guidance of Editor-in-Chief • Propose topic for a commissioned manuscript (written with a trainee or junior colleague) and submit within 3–6 months • Revise manuscript to address reviewer comments and resubmit • Participate in Creager Prize selection committee • Attend Editor conference calls and present papers as assigned • Attend Editorial Board meeting(s) • Provide feedback on full curriculum • Prepare to transition to Editorial Board Member, Associate Editor, or Section Editor

COPE, Committee on Publication Ethics; ICMJE, International Council of Medical Journal Editors; SVM, Society for Vascular Medicine; VMJ, Vascular Medicine journal.

In summary, VMJ is at an ideal mid-point of its Cleveland-based history. We have learned much and have developed operational efficiencies that have given us the bandwidth to pursue new endeavors for our journal. We have seen many of our initial efforts now bear fruit as productive sources of content and contributions to the medical literature, the specialty of vascular medicine, and vascular clinical care. Though we have many accomplishments to celebrate, there remains much for us to do in the years to come, and we look forward to the next 6 years of continued collaboration and engagement with our Editorial Board, publisher, authors, peer reviewers, and readers.