10 Years and 22,000 Manuscripts

It is hard to believe that almost 10 years have passed since Editor Emeritus Robert M. Goldwyn, M.D., retired and passed the torch of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (PRS) Editor-in-Chief to me; I began transitioning to leadership of the Journal in the fall of 2003 and officially became Editor-in-Chief on January 1, 2005. These past 10 years of producing the Journal out of the Editorial Office in Dallas, Texas, have been a fulfilling enterprise, filled with wonderful people, many labors of love, and incredible teamwork. As I reflect on the past decade, I recall true friendships forged, moments of stress, happiness, enthusiasm, sadness, and celebration. Our 10th anniversary provides a wonderful perspective for reflecting on the past 10 years of the Journal and the 22,000 manuscripts we have received during that time, and the amazing staff that has helped bring Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery to new heights. THE DALLAS EDITORIAL OFFICE, BRIEFLY As I set about building an Editorial Office in Dallas, I met and hired Dan Sullivan, who had been the Managing Editor of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Dan served as Managing Editor of the Journal until May 2013. Early in the transitional period, I traveled to the PRS Editorial Office in Brookline, Massachusetts. Dr. Goldwyn ran the Journal from a very modest office with a fiercely loyal staff, including Ed Tynan, who by now has been the Journal’s exacting staff editor for 25 years, including the past 15 years as an employee of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Ed is still one of the core members of my Editorial Office today, running the “Boston office” of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons from his home. One of Dr. Goldwyn’s hallmarks was his ability to give every manuscript (whether accepted or rejected) a truly human and humane touch. I dedicated myself to carry on this marvelous tradition of personalization, customer service, and individual care for every manuscript sent to us. I am also most grateful for the assistance of Barbara Porter, an associate of the University of Texas Southwestern, who helped greatly in the transition of the Editorial Offices from Boston to Dallas and who ended her tenure with PRS in 2005. The spring, summer, and fall of 2004 constituted the transition period between the Brookline and Dallas editorial offices. We interviewed and hired new staff members, including Angela Burch, who proved to be a pivotal member of the PRS team (more on that later). We moved the Journal office to new temporary housing and worked on a new format and section designs of the Journal. We launched the Enkwell submission site in August, and began transitioning away from paper submissions—can you believe that less than 10 years ago, authors still submitted hard copies of their submissions and photographs to us by means of snail mail? (This is one of the clearest indicators to me of how far we have come in a short period.) After my tenure as American Society of Plastic Surgeons President concluded in October, I devoted more time to the Journal and officially became Editor-in-Chief on January 1, 2005. We had a lot of work cut out for us to take PRS to the next level. As mentioned above, one of the first things we did was to introduce an interim article redesign, which was in place for all of 2005. This new design incorporated use of the structured abstract, greater use of shading, and some highlights for figures and tables. We also made it a priority from the start to improve the quality of images in the Journal (an obsession that continues to this day, under the careful scrutiny of the Journal’s graphics coordinator, Angela). It was not until January of 2006 that we introduced the Journal’s sectional organization, color coding of the article sections, and extensive modifications to the PRS Web site. We continued to grow: In 2005, Aaron Weinstein joined the editorial team and quickly rose from an editorial assistant hired to help process the influx of papers we started receiving by means of Enkwell, to our jack-of-all-trades responsible for managing supplements; coordinating the update of our new Web site, PRSJournal.com; and paving the way for the Journal’s video presence, social media strategy, and implementation of our overall digital strategy. In 2006, we brought on April Handley to help us focus our efforts on expanding our CME and MOC program. April left us in 2008, and we hired Isiah Donnell Moore, who has taken up the mantle of managing the ever-complex CME and MOC articles—and, in 2013, has taken on a coordinating role in the implementation of our new journal, PRS Global Open (PRS GO). Over the years, the expert team we assembled in our Dallas and Boston offices continued to produce issue after issue of the most cutting-edge plastic surgery literature in the world. You all have written the articles, treated the patients, and served as reviewers of your peers—but the Editorial Office team has processed each article, reviewed and perfected every photograph of every patient, and administrated every single peer review. They have done it as a small, close-knit team, and they have done it behind the scenes, with the excellent support of our section editors and Editorial Board and our teams at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Executive Office and at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. These combined efforts have grown the Journal from a print-only, paper-submission, steward of the literature to a print, online, and iPad-delivered, electronically submitted, cutting-edge exemplar of the best-of-the-best in academic publishing. Our publisher now holds up PRS as one of the examples they would like other journals to follow. We have incorporated videos, video discussions, and video summaries with each issue; we are on the front line of the evidence-based medicine movement in our field, publishing level of evidence grades on each eligible article; we publish all applicable images in color, at no cost to the author; we have a robust Web site featuring video galleries, topical collections, and blogs; we attract and produce quality supplements year after year, including meeting abstracts and device-specific compendiums; we have a strong presence in the social media sphere, reaching out to readers—and potential readers—24 hours a day; we are now the thirteenth ranked surgery journal in the world and the number one plastic surgery title. We have launched an open access spinoff journal, and an app-based text called the “Clinical Masters.” Day-in, day-out, the Editorial Office works with me not only to bring you the best plastic surgery articles possible, but to bring them to you in the best, most up-to-date, most aesthetically pleasing and effectively efficient package possible. Following Dan’s departure, we conducted a national search for our new Managing Editor and found the top candidate already in our PRS family. In August of 2013, after months of serving as interim and years of being “second in command” of the Editorial Office, Aaron Weinstein was officially named Managing Editor of PRS. We have since hired two new staff members: Dustin Lang, coordinator of digital media and supplements, manages our Web sites, social media, videos, and supplements; BethAnn Harper, our editorial assistant, manages the affairs of the office and is our first line of defense in the editorial process. Aaron, Angela, Ed, Donnell, Dustin, and BethAnn—and past colleagues Dan, April, Barbara, and Neshia Clark—are the not-so-secret weapons that have kept the Journal working, growing, and moving to new heights every day for the past 10 years. As we look back on all that we have achieved in our first 10 years in Dallas, I look forward to all that we will achieve in our next 10 and beyond. PRS BY THE NUMBERS, JUNE OF 2004 TO JUNE OF 2014 Some numbers give a sense of how the Journal has grown and evolved the past 10 years: 47,500 Total pages published, in our regular issues, >26,800 Total downloads of the PRS app for the iPad 22,371 Total manuscripts 12,258 Total Original Articles, Experimental Studies, and Special Topics submitted 3578 Accepted Original Articles, Experimental Studies, and Special Topics (31 percent overall; <25 percent the last 4 years) ~2800 Average visits to PRSJournal.com per day 400+ Number of 6 AM meetings between myself and Dan, on Thursday mornings 297 Accepted but unscheduled articles inherited from previous editorial office (a backlog that was completely eliminated in 27 months) 127 Regular issues of PRS published >60 Video Discussions edited and published 46 Supplements >45 Visits to Dallas’ famous Mia’s Tex-Mex Restaurant for lunch >40 Editor-in-Chief Video Introductions to PRS issues scripted, shot, and edited 35+ (and Number of 6 AM meetings between counting) myself and Aaron, on Thursday mornings 24 PRS Journal Managing Committee/Editorial Board Meetings <21 Average number of days from submission to first decision, all manuscripts 13 Current rank of PRS out of all surgery journal titles (last evaluated in 2012), placing PRS in the top 7 percent of all surgery titles 10 American Society of Plastic Surgeons annual meetings 9 American Society of Plastic Surgeons annual meeting abstract supplements 8 Plastic Surgery Research Council annual meeting abstract supplements <5 Average number of months from acceptance to publication for PRS articles 5 Babies born to or adopted by PRS staff over the past 10 years 4 European Plastic Surgery Research Council annual meeting abstract supplements 3.535 Current impact factor of PRS (up from 1.629 in 2003) 3 Apps in the PRS family (PRS, PRS Global Open, and Clinical Masters) 3 Plastic surgery journal editors roundtable meetings 2 Weddings for PRS staff members in the past 10 years 1 Sister publication, PRS Global Open No. 1 Plastic surgery journal in the world These numbers succinctly chronicle some of the key metrics of the Journal and key moments for the Editorial Office staff over the past 10 years and over 22,000 manuscripts. They stand as a testament to the overall productivity, skill, ambition, efficiency, and dedication of the PRS editorial staff as a whole (and publisher and American Society of Plastic Surgeons leadership), and I am grateful to each member of the PRS team for achieving these incredible numbers. However, numbers do not tell the full story. THE STORY BEHIND THE NUMBERS Possibly, some of the history described above has elucidated the story behind the numbers and the people behind each issue of PRS. I want you to know that all of you—readers, authors, and reviewers; Editorial Board members; and past, present, and future Section Editors—are part of the family of PRS. And at the heart of that family, the nucleus if you will, is our editorial staff in Dallas and Boston, past and present. The staff is fallible but made up of wonderful human beings; we have gone through marriages, births and adoptions of babies, deaths, incredible hardships and illness, and wonderful joys and celebrations together. Through it all, the editorial staff has always come together to bring PRS to you, every month. Over the past 22,000 manuscripts, the Editorial Office has created a culture of warmth, acceptance, and encouragement, out of which flows incredible productivity. The team—my staff, colleagues and friends—have shared 10 (and counting) holiday lunches and countless phone calls, e-mails, and meetings. We have been to annual meetings of domestic and international plastic surgery groups in Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, San Diego, Boston, New York, Vancouver, Seattle, and Toronto together; we have been to Germany and China, and will soon travel to Austria. But no matter how far we go or travel, the heart of my team and the heart of PRS is in our Editorial Office—both Boston and Dallas. That, as they say, is where the magic happens. BEYOND THE NUMBERS I am gratified to see the transition has already enabled the entire staff—Aaron, Ed, Angela, Donnell, Neshia, and Dustin—to further stretch their abilities, grow their skills, and gel as a team in our goal to keep Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the forefront of innovation and the pinnacle of publishing excellence. Working together with our superb publishing team at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, including publisher Elizabeth Durzy, production editor Jeda Taylor, advertising sales representative Brian Parker, and marketer Lisa Webb, and numerous incredible partners and collaborators in the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Executive Office personified by Publications Director Mike Stokes, the Journal has many exciting ongoing projects and new initiatives in store that will continue to challenge us and enable the Journal to continue to grow with the continued success of PRS GO, further development of tablet and Web site offerings, increased outreach to colleagues and residents both at home and abroad, and a rapidly increasing number of submissions, which we will continue to shepherd through the editorial process day in and day out. While we reminisce about the growth and history of the Editorial Office through the past 10 years and 22,000 manuscripts, we enthusiastically begin a new era with an eye toward the future. We will go on. We will thrive. We will continue to bring you the best experience of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. DISCLOSURE The author has no financial interest to declare in relation to the content of this Editorial. The author is the Editor-in-Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Dan Sullivan, Mike Stokes, and Aaron Weinstein for their contributions to this article.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.