Leading article

BJS – looking to the futureJ. MurieBritish Journal of Surgery, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester PO19 8SQ, UK (e-mail: bjs@wiley.co.uk)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.bjs.co.uk). DOI: 10.1002/bjs.4488

At this point last year, in a leadingarticle entitled ‘Changing times forBJS’, I was able to highlight theincorporation of the European Journalof Surgery with this Journal, andour change of publisher to JohnWiley & Sons. Both of these changeshave worked well for the Journalthroughout 2003 and we have beenable to retain our high impact factor(Fig. 1), remaining second in theworld (after Annals of Surgery) amonglarge general surgical journals.

Change – innovation – has not cea-sed. It can hardly have escapedthe notice of even the most casualreader that the front cover of BJShas been entirely redesigned. Theold cover, which has suited theJournal well for many years, wasbecoming rather staid – perhaps dull.The Editors believe that the new,brighter, version properly reflects the

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Fig. 1 BJS impact factor over the last 10 years

modern outlook of those workingfor the Journal and, indeed, of ourreaders and contributors. Readers willalso find a far greater use of colourwithin the pages of the Journal.This allows an easier appreciationof graphic detail, and backgroundcolour for tables renders the pagemore attractive to the eye thanits erstwhile grey counterpart. Thevarious sections of the Journal are nowindividually distinguishable by colourkey; for example, leading articles areheaded in red, reviews are in green,and so on.

In the summer of 2003, Profes-sor Pierre Guillou of Leeds, UKdemitted office as Editor, and Pro-fessor Matthias Rothmund of Mar-burg, Germany followed in Decem-ber. All of my colleagues at BJSare deeply grateful to both for theirhard work and enthusiastic support

for the Journal over several years.Matthias Rothmund will not, how-ever, be entirely lost to BJS; as ofthis month he becomes Vice Chair-man of the British Journal of SurgerySociety, which owns the title of theJournal. While the loss of ProfessorsGuillou and Rothmund from the Edi-torial Team is a significant one, we arefortunate to be joined now by Profes-sor Hug Obertop of Amsterdam, TheNetherlands – a long-time supporterof the Journal and its causes. HugObertop was, until his appointment asEditor, a Member of Council of theBritish Journal of Surgery Society.

I have left this year’s most sig-nificant change until last. Through-out 2003 our Chairman, Chris Rus-sell, and the executive have beenin regular contact with senior offi-cers of the Swiss Society of Surgery,owners of the journal Swiss Surgery, adistinguished publication whose his-tory is outlined in the article followingthis one, authored by Felix Harder,Adrian Leutenegger and Pierre-AlainClavien. That article describes thebackground leading up to the incor-poration of Swiss Surgery with BJS. Asits authors also comment, amalgama-tion of European forces is likely tobring mutual benefit to the individualparticipants. Certainly my colleaguesand I at BJS recognize the mutual ben-efit that has derived from our relation-ship with the Association of Surgeonsof the Netherlands and the SwedishSurgical Society, and from our incor-poration last year of the EuropeanJournal of Surgery. We believe thatstrength from association will also bethe case for our Swiss colleagues. Letus look to the future together.

Copyright 2004 British Journal of Surgery Society Ltd British Journal of Surgery 2004; 91: 1Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd