Abstract
Knowledge is a powerful tool, no matter your profession or pastime; and for many, its consumption brings great pleasure. We seek information in different ways, and there is a seemingly inverse correlation between our age and the complexity of the technology we use to obtain our information. But even as technology advances and ever more ingenious ways of reaching eager audiences are exploited, there remains something quite special about the heavy thud created by a journal falling from a letterbox onto the doormat. Of those journals that do still land on the floor of my hallway, the Journal of the Intensive Care Society has always been the one that gets immediately unwrapped and taken on the otherwise unbearable daily journeys through London’s crammed transportation network. It is also the only journal from the pile on my desk that gets read from cover to cover. This pleasure is hard to encapsulate by any metric, but I think many of you share my warm attachment to our journal. Like many journals, this one had humble beginnings, starting as a newsletter for the Intensive Care Society to highlight current and interesting stories in our field. We owe much to the early editors and editorial teams for their vision and vocation in creating the foundations of the journal. I doubt they could have imagined how the journal would look today. We now have a thriving publication with articles submitted from international authors and an online platform that provides access to readers all around the world.
The quality of the articles published in the Journal of the Intensive Care Society is a testament to the commitment of the authors who strive to push our specialty forwards. Without their ideas, innovations and energy, our field would stagnate. Sharing our findings and experiences with others is a vital part of the quality improvement process. Those that embark upon such a mission must face down many challenges along the way: acquiring funding and ethical approval, executing a study adeptly such that it can answer the pertinent question and analysing the results appropriately and with wisdom, such that their work can make a valuable contribution to the evidence on which we base our practice. Each of these stages poses its own specific set of hurdles to be overcome, and at the end of this long journey, lies the task, often dreaded, of getting the work published. To authors, the publication process can sometimes feel like engaging in a battle for our precious manuscripts, as we try to persuade the chosen journal to see the world from our perspective. That perpetually unsatisfied dragon, the ‘third reviewer’, haunts many of our nightmares. In these struggles, we may overlook and fail to appreciate what happens at the journal’s end of the publication process. Peer review is carried out by a huge number of unsung heroes, who give their time freely to work their way through articles with diligence, lending their own expertise to shape and improve them. Whilst reviewer’s comments are often unwelcome, from a personal perspective, I cannot remember an article that was not improved by the intellectual rigour of this process. Even the most cynical of us will secretly admit that the final version of a paper is usually a far better read than the draft that was first submitted. Peer reviewers are in turn assisted by team of handling editors, who, though rarely thanked or praised for it, are always eager to help. The time they give to the journal is their own, and without it, the journal would cease to exist.
In life, I have always been taught to save the best thing to last, so I would like to bring my first foreword to a close by talking about my predecessor. Over the last five years, the good ship JICS has been skilfully helmed by Jonathan Handy. His calm, thoughtful approach to running the journal has been fundamental to its success over this period. On his watch, he developed a framework to secure the journal’s future. He supervised the successful move to SAGE Journals, with the accompanying provision of online free access to publications and masterminded the promotion of the journal to a PubMed Central listing. Aside from these remarkable achievements, he has devoted an immeasurable amount of time to helping authors publish their treasured work. He has guided many first-time authors through this daunting process, enabling them to finally see their name in press and communicate their findings to the professionals within their own speciality. I would like to thank Jonathan for everything he has given to the journal during his time as Editor in Chief, for his dedication to its progress, and for handing on to me a journal we can all be proud to call our own. During the gruelling hot summer months, as we have watched lawns and parks turn to into barren wildernesses and a brief football-related frisson overcome the nation, Jonathan and I began a four-month long handing over of the baton. Under Jonathan’s watchful eye, I have gradually taken over the various tasks that are required to keep the journal running and memorised the important deadlines that keep the show on the road. We have refreshed our team of Associate Editors who represent the backbone and future hopes for the journal and discussed our plans to continue the journal’s trajectory from strength to strength. Alterations to the structure of the journal include moving the letters and correspondence to the online platform only and the CAT reviews have come to an end. Jonathan is now to be released back into the wild again, free from the journal’s deadlines and decisions. I shall not let him roam too far though, as there’s no one I’d rather have by my side to weather any storms that lie ahead. And as Jonathan often liked to wrap up with a quote, so too will I begin my editorship, with words from the Jedi Grand Master himself, Yoda: ‘Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice’.