Looking forward to looking back

As I sit down to write this editorial, I find myself reflecting on how the life of an editor is one of ‘temporal schizophrenia’. With apologies to my psychiatrist colleagues for this corruption of clinical terminology, the phrase seems appropriate given that my mind is constantly split across many points in time. When an issue of the journal crosses my desk, I find myself cast back in time as the contents can seem unfamiliar thanks to the 4-month lag between an item's acceptance and my receipt of a hard copy of the journal. When I open my inbox in Manuscript Central, I routinely find myself marvelling at how possible it is to truly be in the present nowadays as I commit myself to the task of examining a manuscript that may have been submitted from any corner of the globe just minutes before I begin to read it. When I think through the decision that must be made on any such manuscript (or through broader aspects of the journal's direction), I find myself sucked forward into the future. Constructing each issue requires a bit of guesswork as to what will be most useful to our readership in the coming months and years and, given that it takes time for people to read and incorporate new ideas into their own work, there are never any data available to help inform the adequacy of such decisions until well after it is too late to do anything about them. When citations do begin to accumulate, or articles we've published start to be mentioned during conference presentations, I am once again cast back in time, often many years, in an effort to reconstruct the decision-making process with an eye towards continuous quality improvement. Never, however, has that temporal schizophrenia seemed more pronounced than it has in the last few months. Those of you who monitor www.mededuc.com will see lots of reason to believe that the future is now … click Read on that page and you'll discover (among other things) opportunities to engage in a live-time journal club with colleagues from around the globe (140 characters at a time); click Discuss and you can engage in more extensive asynchronous conversations or review what others have said in Twitter-based journal clubs; click Listen and you will have the opportunity to hear our authors’ perspectives on their works in their own voices and in a format that we hope will complement that which can be achieved through print. Our thanks go to Josh Jacobs, our e-editor, and his e-council for their ongoing stimulation and support of these initiatives. Meanwhile, over the past 2 years the journal has been busily preparing for a future that is actually in the future by engaging in a look back at our past. Four months from the release of this editorial, Medical Education will begin to publish its 50th volume. Over the course of 2016 you will see a variety of commissioned articles and web-based offerings that provide opportunities to look back through the journal's 50-year history in an effort to help us determine how we as a field might best move forward into the next 50 years. I mention this now for two separate reasons. The first is that this is my last opportunity to alert you to the fact that we're planning a fun issue as the capstone for 2016. Details can be found online (again, click Read at www.mededuc.com), but the deadline is looming. In a nutshell, we're looking for unusual articles that offer (empirical or otherwise) examinations of some of the fringe questions that may have occurred to you, but for which you don't see an obvious publication outlet, such as What is the relationship between caloric intake, conference attendance and learning achieved during the meeting? Or Which intervention is more effective for the recruitment of practitioners to under-served regions: the selection of trainees from those regions or the creation of a dating service? Put your thinking cap on your funny bone and let's see what happens. Priority will be given to those articles that are both thought-provoking and amusingly engaging. As always, feel free to write to [email protected] with inquiries if you're uncertain as to whether or not your idea might fit this special issue. The second reason is to let our readership know that the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) recently announced that its 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting will have the theme ‘50 years of Medical Education: historical perceptions, future directions’. More details will come, but as you are planning your 2016 travel, I hope you will consider joining us in Belfast, UK, for what is sure to be a stimulating meeting next July (see www.asme.org.uk). If there are activities or sessions that you believe would help make this event a particularly exciting or fruitful way to celebrate the 50th anniversary, now is the time to share those ideas by sending them to [email protected]. Returning to the present, I would like to also use this opportunity to offer a summary of some of the happenings at Medical Education in 2015 about which we will be excited for some time to come. Our second cohort of editorial interns – Dr Gabrielle Finn (Hull–York Medical School, UK), Dr Lara Varpio (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, USA) and Dr Ilham Youssry (Cairo University, Egypt) – have just completed their internship year. They added tremendously to the journal while working closely with the editorial team to gain insight into the practical realities of the publication process from the behind-the-scenes perspectives of the publisher, editors, reviewers, authors and the public. The entire editorial team contributed handsomely to this activity, going above and beyond their regular duties by offering individualised mentorship and consultation to each of the interns. We extend our special thanks to all those involved, including the interns themselves for making our year with them so enjoyable. Finally, it is that time again when Medical Education recognises and celebrates a few of the many individuals who continue to help our field go from strength to strength. At the ASME meeting that took place recently in Edinburgh, Scotland, the winners of the 2015 Medical Education awards were announced. We are extremely grateful for the contributions of these individuals and for the continued excellence demonstrated by all of our authors and reviewers. The Silver Quill Award, given for the article from the preceding year that was downloaded at the highest rate, is awarded to Dr Rebecca Olson and Dr Andrea Bialocerkowski (Australia), for their paper entitled ‘Interprofessional education in allied health: a systematic review’.1 The Henry Walton Prize, given for the Really Good Stuff paper from the preceding year that was downloaded at the highest rate, is awarded to Dr Joseph Leung, Dr Shekhar Kumta, Dr Yan Jin and Dr Alex Yung (Hong Kong), for their article entitled ‘Short review of the flipped classroom approach’.2 The Choice Critics Awards, given for outstanding contributions to Medical Education as peer reviewers, are presented to Dr Elizabeth Anderson (Hull–York Medical School, UK), Dr Hossam Hamdy (University of Sharjah, UAE), Dr Wolf Hautz (Charité Medical University, Germany), Dr Aslak Steinsbekk (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway), Dr Lara Varpio (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, USA), Dr Andy Wearn (University of Auckland, New Zealand) and Dr Jennifer Weller (University of Auckland, New Zealand). The Medical Education Travelling Fellowship is awarded to Dr Esther Helmich (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) in support of her travel to Western University in Canada to develop research into how students respond to complexity during their training. And finally, the 2014–2015 Medical Education Editorial Interns will be Robbert Duvivier (University of Newcastle, Australia), Martin Tolsgaard (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), and Jacqueline (Liz) Wolvaardt (University of Pretoria, South Africa).

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