Abstract
“Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.”
Elbert Hubbard, US Author (1856–1915)
Having actively contributed to the Journal as both an author and reviewer over the past decade under the successive successful editorships of Sidney Bloch and Peter Joyce it is an honour to be appointed Editor to the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (ANZJP), and a privilege to serve the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) in this capacity. It is a role in which I will endeavor to satisfy, as far as possible, the diverse expectations of the Journal's myriad readers. To assist in fulfilling this momentous responsibility I will be drawing on the expertise and experience of the Associate Editors, both those that continue in this role, namely Anthony Jorm, Scott Henderson, Richard Porter and Alison Yung, and those that have been newly appointed, namely Michael Berk and Philip Boyce.
This turnover of neuronal energy has been made possible by a number of former Associate Editors graciously relinquishing their role in lieu of other responsibilities. For instance, Sue Luty has kindly agreed to continue her involvement with the Journal on the International Advisory Board and Patrick McGorry has generously agreed to be an Adviser to the Editor. Along with Sam Gershon, Julio Licinio, Povl Munk-Jorgensen and Garry Walter, the Advisers to the Editor is an illustrious group of colleagues. Each of the advisers is an eminent editor of a psychiatry journal in their own right, and is therefore suitably qualified to provide meaningful advice with respect to publishing policy and the strategic direction of the Journal. Occasionally, the advisers will also be invited to comment in the Journal's pages on broader matters that impact upon psychiatry, such as government policy and societal perceptions of mental illness. Over the coming months the International Advisory Board will undergo significant remodeling and already a number of colleagues of international renown have been inducted namely, Paul Groff, Rob Howard, Dinesh Bhugra, Veena Kumari and Jayashri Kulkarni.
With a renewed migration towards research, statistical input is an important dimension of the article review process. An ‘implausibility’ of Statistical Advisers that, like their distant gnu relatives, possess ‘swarm intelligence’ will provide advice and guidance with respect to probabilistic matters. Led by Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic, the initial team includes Ute Vollmer-Conna, Carissa Coulston and Glenn Hunt.
Other changes afoot will be intimated in due course in forthcoming issues of the ANZJP and I will also set out a clear vision for the Journal and its role in publishing psychiatric science. One aspect, however, that I can begin to address in brief, and general terms, is my role as Editor. Assisted by those already mentioned, and more to come, I hope to separate the wheat from the chaff but unlike our broadsheet counterparts, attempt to publish the former. Yet what is the ‘wheat’ of Psychiatry?
It is important that the sophisticated and well-established roots of the discipline are not forgotten, or worse still shunned. The complex background from which psychiatry is emerging has to be acknowledged and inculcated just as medicine must now fully subsume psychiatry as a subspecialty that deals with the mind, brain and body. In turn psychiatry has to embrace science and be viewed increasingly as having a scientific underpinning. To this end the purpose of the Journal is to feature and promote scientific inquiry into the full spectrum of psychiatric enterprise and inform readers about salient matters within the field. It will prioritize novel findings and breakthroughs, and highlight the advances being made at the cutting edge of clinical psychiatric research. In addition, it will promote the translation of research evidence into clinically meaningful messages that can be utilized in practice when exercising psychiatric decision-making and managing patients day to day. As alluded to earlier, the ANZJP audience is large and varied. It ranges from the relatively inexperienced, including those that are still training, to those that have been immersed in psychiatric practice for decades and have a wealth of understanding at its coalface. The Journal therefore needs to provide a breadth of education that informs those that are at the beginning of their journey and updates those that are nearing its end. A similar breadth of perspectives exists within psychiatric academia where researchers often view matters differently to clinicians and yet both strive to connect theory and clinical practice. In real world practice, there is a further spectrum of ‘types’ of clinical psychiatry that encompasses the obvious subspecialties within psychiatry, such as old age and child and adolescent psychiatry, but also the range of settings from public to private with many admixtures in between. A further complexity is that while the Journal is subscribed to by College members, the majority of whom are within Australia and New Zealand, it is accessed online internationally and cited worldwide. Somehow, all of these diverse aspects of clinical psychiatry and psychiatric research need to be accurately and equitably reflected in these pages.
In future issues of the Journal, in conjunction with colleagues, I will endeavor to provide more specific guidance as to what the Journal hopes to achieve and in particular the kinds of articles we will publish. Finally, it is important for the ANZJP to have lively dialogue and engage in debate and therefore I will be constantly encouraging authors and readers to make use of our Correspondence section to discuss and comment on Journal content. An incisive Letter to the Editor has the potential to contribute just as much to ‘Journal wheat’ as a research report on the aetiology of a psychiatric disorder or a pioneering treatment method.