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(Circulation. 2004;109:3060-3061.)
© 2004 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Special Article

Editor’s Farewell

James T. Willerson, MD, (Editor-in-Chief, 1993–2004)

On behalf of the Associate Editors, our staff, and myself, I wish to express our most sincere appreciation to the American Heart Association and the readership of Circulation for the privilege and opportunity to serve as stewards of Circulation for the past 11 years. The opportunities to review some of the very best work done in cardiovascular medicine during this period of time and to develop publication resources that have allowed timely presentation of that work have been a great privilege. We are also appreciative of the support of the Scientific Publishing Committee of the American Heart Association, the authors who have submitted manuscripts to Circulation, the reviewers who devoted countless hours to evaluating manuscripts for us, the readership of Circulation for their suggestions and useful comments, and our publisher, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. We have enjoyed the opportunity to bring together physician scientists within the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, who worked diligently together during these past 11 years to select the very best work submitted to us for publication in Circulation. We have learned a great deal in the process; for all of these opportunities, we are enormously grateful. We shall miss Circulation as it now moves to Boston, Massachusetts, under the leadership of a new Editor, Dr Joseph Loscalzo, and his colleagues. We are confident that Dr Loscalzo and his team will continue the long legacy of Circulation’s commitment to excellence in the publication of cardiovascular research and that they will take Circulation to even higher levels of achievement.

Please permit me a few personal reflections as Circulation moves tomorrow to its new home in Boston. The past 11 years have seen significant changes in Circulation. From the outset, I wished for Circulation to be published on a weekly basis. When the journal moved to Houston, Texas, in 1993, it was published monthly. With the permission of the Publishing Committee and the assistance of the American Heart Association, we were able to change the frequency of publication so that in 1995, it was published twice a month, and in January of 1998, it began to be published on a weekly basis, and that has continued until the present time. I believe that this has been useful for the readership of Circulation in that it has allowed more rapid publication of important work in a smaller, more portable print journal that is easier to read and to manage. We have also been able to present Circulation online in its entirety each week since the summer of 1998. Today, manuscripts that are accepted for publication in Circulation are published online within 7 to 10 days after the edited proofs are returned to the publisher and in the print journal within approximately 5 weeks. In addition, we have created special sections for Circulation that include reviews of important cardiovascular topics, selected cardiovascular images, discussions of cardiovascular medications and their uses, clinical updates for clinicians, and special summaries of cardiovascular diseases for patients themselves. The most recent addition, "Mini-Review: Expert Opinions," offered timely discussions of topics that are important to all who are interested in cardiovascular medicine. Thus, Circulation has presented information that should be useful to everyone concerned with cardiovascular problems: the scientist, the educator, the physician, and the patient, as well as cardiovascular care providers in general. We also initiated a Rapid Track submission category that has allowed selected manuscripts to be reviewed and a decision communicated to the author within 7 working days; manuscripts selected in this category were then presented online in 7 to 10 days and within the print journal in 4 to 5 weeks.

I thank the Associate Editors who have worked hard to help select the very best manuscripts for publication in Circulation and the dedicated staff who have served Circulation so well. My gratitude to these men and women is enormous, and I thank them now formally on behalf of the American Heart Association and the readership of Circulation. I also thank the Section Editors for their leadership of special sections in the journal; they have made significant contributions to the content of Circulation by suggesting topics of interest, recruiting authors, reviewing manuscripts, and helping us include special reviews in the body of information presented to our readership.

I have worked during my tenure as Editor of Circulation to make it a journal for the world, in the sense that it provides information important to all concerned with cardiovascular medicine, regardless of where they may work. Therefore, we developed an Editorial Board that included physician scientists with special expertise in cardiovascular medicine who were chosen from throughout the world. We have held annual meetings for our Editorial Board members concurrent with the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association and the European Congress of Cardiology each of the past 11 years. This has provided the opportunity for a useful interchange for the broad membership of our Editorial Board. As some evidence of the success of these efforts, Circulation is now published in part or in whole in 10 different languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Czech, and Portuguese.

I am very grateful to our Editorial Board members both in the United States and abroad for their commitment to review manuscripts promptly when asked.

The opportunity for me to serve as Editor of Circulation in these past years has been a very special one. Although I have devoted a significant number of hours on a daily basis in helping Circulation constantly strive to improve, it has been a labor of love. I have enjoyed the opportunity to interact with physician scientists, authors, reviewers, critics, the Publishing Committee of the American Heart Association, and other support groups within the American Heart Association. This has been an opportunity that I shall treasure for the remainder of my life.

Friends often ask me what I will do with all of my newly found time, and some have expressed the hope that I will not quickly fill it with other activities. My answer is that I shall be different from the aging soldier leader who, in the words of the stirring West Point refrain, simply "fades away." I shall not go quietly. The newly acquired time has already been redirected to my continuing roles as educator, clinical scientist, and physician. This is my plan for the remainder of my useful and creative days, however many that may be.

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Willerson, J. T. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Willerson, J. T.