Two decades at the helm: it only seems like a few weeks

Abstract

‘We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives’. (Ed Wood, opening monologue from Plan 9 from Outer Space, among the worst (and hence possibly the best) movies ever made).

Hopefully, it has come as no surprise to readers of the Internal Medicine Journal (IMJ) that I am no longer Editor-in-Chief. It is likely that my successor, Paul Bridgman has already done considerably more work than he was anticipating when he first thought about applying for the position. I have been offered the opportunity to put something in writing to muse on the past 20 years in the position and an additional 5 or 6 before that as the haematology editor of the journal. When my predecessor, Ed Byrne, AO, decided to move on to greater things even than this journal, he tapped me on the shoulder and encouraged me to go for it. I did not expect to be successful in the application, nor to have still been here in 2025.

What have I seen? During this period, the journal moved to its current publisher and the previous hard copy submission and editing system was quickly replaced. This caused more than a little consternation among some editors and the editorial office, but it happened; we were all trained and worked through multiple iterations while the journal continued to be published regularly. We ensured that there was a published issue every month from the usual 10 issues per annum, which was the norm prior to that. We gradually improved the reach of the journal, with the help of the publisher and the increasing quality of submitted work, reflected in the impact factor and other metrics.

Every year, in my January editorial, I have sung the praises of our Editorial Manager, Virginia Savickis, and her assistants at various times, Louise Young-Wilson and Aparna Avasarala. I feel that despite two decades of such comments, I have failed to do them justice. Whatever positive feeling you may have gleaned from my previous comments, please multiply them exponentially and then add some. Without this team, there would have been no IMJ, certainly not of the quality we have come to expect.

I regret very little about my time in the chair. One regret that I do have is that we did not fight harder for some form of print publication being maintained. There are still some fellows and readers who prefer a hard copy of academic papers. While I regard myself as somewhat ahead of the curve as far as technology is concerned, I still prefer to review and correct manuscripts on paper. I feel that, for some reason (and there may be literature to support this, although I will not seek it out), my brain is more forgiving of errors on the screen than on paper. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to any possibility of even limited print publication, and we were all forced to wear that. We are, of course, not the only journal in the world to have gone down this path.

I would like to make two statements of style, mainly to prospective authors and based on frequent problems we have had over the years. First, our style is clear with regards to eponymous names in medicine. They no longer (and have not for a long time) been possessive. Unless you are talking about the disease that Dr Parkinson had, it is and should be ‘Parkinson disease’ (not ‘Parkinson's’). The same applies to ‘Crohn disease’ and others that will look clumsy for a while until you get used to it. Second, please be careful with diphthongs. The suffix ‘penia’ as in ‘neutropenia’ or ‘sarcopenia’ does not have another letter ‘a’ in it, in any form of the English language. This is a Greek suffix meaning ‘a deficiency of’ and there is no ‘ae’ diphthong in Greek. There is such a construct in Latin so ‘haematology’ is correct. That's all I have to say on the matter.

So, I say farewell and hand over one of the most important academic publishing positions in Australia and New Zealand to Paul Bridgman and wish him and you, the readers and reviewers, well for the future. I do not plan to lose connection with the IMJ, however, as Paul has kindly offered to create a position for me as Emeritus Editor-in-Chief. I hope I can continue to provide some value to the editorial process.

The future is coming and looks bright for the IMJ. I am sure the ongoing assessments will be much better than those for Plan 9 from Outer Space. To Paul and the journal, I quote another of my favourite science fiction statements, ‘Live long and prosper’.