Two years seen out: MedicalExpress going stronger than ever

Abstract

New journals cannot survive without friends: for who else, except real friends, would ever send papers to a journal that, to begin with, does not even exist, then barely survives; if it eventually finds its way into a serious database it begins to look at a real existence. So, this editorial celebrates two auspicious landmarks: MedicalExpress has made it into SciELO and is closing out volume two, year 2015; the entire collection will become visible in www.scielo.org sometime early next year. But even before appearing in SciELO, with nothing but Google Scholar and our own site (www. medicalexpress.net.br), we can boast close to 30 citations (and counting) to the 61 articles published in 2014. This means that we now have practically 0.5 citations/article. This is not an impact factor; it is better! For those familiar with the intricacies of this metric, 0.5 citations/year in the year immediately following publication foretells a pretty good Impact Factor twelve months hence. But at this point guesswork is still a dangerous sport. Published articles have been downloaded close to 35,000 times, 50 times/day. And we are sticking to our main offer: we publish in 40 ± 10 days after acceptance, which is faster than most of the competition. But far above celebrations, this is the time for a number of thank yous: MedicalExpress is forever indebted to the authors of the 100-plus papers, which were published throughout 2014-15 and paved the way for the future. As I said, new journals do not survive without friends. Thanks are also due to our sponsors, who believed in us to start from, and still apparently do. The last, certainly not least, “thanks a lot” simply has to go from the editor to his wife, Vera Lucia, who put up with a lot of anxiety, with numerous bouts of foul humor and who never failed to keep telling the editor that success was just around the corner. Did she really know? Did she really believe in it? It has often been said that smart ladies always know! It goes without saying that articles from the, oh so loyal friends are still hoped for, still expected, still