Colombian Journal of Anesthesiology, present and future challenges in its 50th

From its beginnings, anesthesiology as a specialty has advocated patient care, providing relief from pain and suffering during surgical procedures. A plethora of surgical specialities, procedures and technologies have emerged thanks to this specialty which, have increasingly made it safer, with its achievement of lowest adverse effects and highest patient satisfaction.(1) Since its creation, the Colombian Journal of Anesthesiology (CJA) has joined anesthetists along the road of updating their knowledge for daily practice by becoming part of the advancements in the field of peer scientific publications in the world, and gaining local, regional and world recognition. Anesthesiology, in turn, has made substantial progress during this time, improving patient safety, in particular over the past 15 years. The number of techniques, devices and specific training areas have experienced significant growth, as has also been the case with perioperative patient management and monitoring, where the role of anesthetists has been well recognized. (2) Both the specialty as well as the Journal continue to face challenges given that, over the course of the coming years, the specialty will be expected to embrace tools for accurate and personalized patient management, including genomics, epigenetics (3), telemedicine, green anesthesia and the use of perioperative diagnostic imaging supported by artificial intelligence (2). However, added to this daunting future landscape, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, created in 2014, identified the wide gap existing in the world in terms of access to surgery and anesthesia services and related health outcomes. This prompted a proposal focused on monitoring of six indicators that reflect safe and affordable universal access to surgical and anesthetic care (4):