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ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATISMVol. 58, No. 2, February 2008, p S160DOI 10.1002/art.23170© 2008, American College of Rheumatology
Afterword
Lessons Learned
Michael D. Lockshin
When I invited people to comment about Arthritis& Rheumatism (A&R) for this celebratory supplement, Iworried that the respondents might say A&R had not(contrary to what we think) led scientific advances in thefield of rheumatology, that non-Americans considerA&R arrogant, that print publication and peer-reviewhave no future, and that A&R will not be read by the nextgeneration of rheumatologists. I asked prior A&R edi-tors, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR)president, non-Americans, and other authors to addressthese worries—and to not mince words in their replies.
My worry was unnecessary. In this supplementthe former editors make it clear that, long before theimportance of the findings were widely understood,today’s cell and cytokine-based theories of disease andtheir attendant clinical applications were first publishedin these pages. The “classic” articles the former editorschose show us that the way clinicians and basic scientistsdo their jobs today is the result of information publishedlong ago in A&R. We learn that English is indeedaccepted as the common language of clinical medicineand basic science. The characteristic that non-Americancontributors attribute to A&R is quality.
Regarding the future, contributors speculate thatelectronic publication will supersede paper publicationand that interactive publication, online data sets, blogs,user manipulation of data, broadcasting, and, likely, viral
and hacker corruption of files will be what the nextgeneration reads. Peer review will remain, but how it willbe accomplished will change. Future readers will includeeveryone with online access: scientists and clinicians ofcourse, and patients, legislators, and funders as well,raising the possibility of a mission change for thisjournal.
Contributors suggest opportunities that are bet-ter addressed by the ACR than by this journal. ShouldA&R or should the ACR publish illustrative cases,training sets, and ask-the-expert blogs? Should scientificarticles be simultaneously published in formats for nov-ice, competent, and expert readers? Should articles beinteractive, allowing readers to query authors and earntraining credits? If so, should these activities be man-aged by the ACR or by A&R? Which organizationshould proactively seek to engage scientists and clini-cians in less fortunate areas of the world, sponsortranslation services, or modify fees according to need?Who will pay for these changes, and what will they cost?These are questions that A&R and the ACR can andshould address.
A technical challenge to future editors of A&Rwill be to manage the movement to electronic publica-tion and expanded audiences. Other challenges will be toadapt to changing electronic technologies, to guaranteeelectronic data integrity, to sustain the journal’s keyvetting and quality assurance roles, and, finally to do allof the above without damaging the fiscal integrity ofA&R, the ACR, and our publisher.
The largest challenge—and the greatestopportunity—for A&R in the next 50 years will be tointernationalize its leadership (as it already has itscontent and authorship), and so to draw together, and tolead, the further intellectual development of the entirerheumatology world.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do notrepresent formal policy of this journal or of the American College ofRheumatology.
Michael D. Lockshin, MD: Hospital for Special Surgery, NewYork, New York (Editor, Arthritis & Rheumatism).
Address correspondence to Michael D. Lockshin, MD, Hos-pital for Special Surgery, 535 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021.E-mail: [email protected].
Submitted for publication September 17, 2007; acceptedSeptember 17, 2007.
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