Abstract
I recently returned from a trip to Asia where I ran a workshop on publishing in medical journals. This is, of course, a standard routine for a medical journal editor, although it is very much a personal performance since all editors have their peculiarities. How relevant my experiences might be, for example, to a crowd of Chinese geneticists is open for discussion, but there is always a thrill in sharing ideas with people from different cultures. Medicine can be a parochial career, in terms of locality and specialty, if it suits your bent, or it can be an international, multicultural adventure.
JRSM has steered a clear course in recent years: to establish itself as the leading clinical journal for UK medicine. That journey continues. This month, we introduce an important series on lessons in leadership which will feature articles from people with leadership experiences to share from medicine and beyond. 1 ‘Without fit for purpose leaders and proper leadership development of the over 250 clinical commissioning groups who will assume £60bn of funding from 2013,’ warns Aidan Halligan, ‘there is real potential for the undermining of public trust in the NHS and for clinical catastrophe at scale.’
But the reality of medicine in our interdependent world is that medical and surgical specialties are international enterprises. In our ambition to bring readers the best possible clinical articles, JRSM will increasingly feature research papers and reviews of international relevance that will offer valuable insights and learning for a UK readership as well as an international one. In this issue, Allyson Pollock and colleagues warn of the dangers of rolling out a large vaccination programme without data to support the initiative, as is being considered in two populous regions of India. 2
The primary enablers of internationalism, of course, are affordable international air travel and information technology. My voyage to the Far East was more tolerable for a personal interactive video screen offering films, drama, music, and games. In between, a laptop, electronic reader, and other handheld electronic devices provided e-comfort. Without Powerpoint the deep meaning of my workshop might have been lost on my Eastern friends.
Some of you might add your iPad to that list? Clinicians are familiar to marketing companies as early adopters of technology, and if you believe an essay in this month's issue you will accept that tablet devices, of which an iPad is merely one, will quickly transform the practice and delivery of every aspect of clinical care. 3 Indeed, I'll stick my neck out—my in-flight viewing of Game of Thrones taught me that necks are there for slicing off—and say that tablet devices will have an equally transformational effect on medical journals. We are already seeing newspapers and weekly journals moving successfully to tablet versions. Where they lead, monthly journals will follow—albeit in our own peculiar manner.