Richard W. McCallum, MD: New Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Investigative Medicine

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* Richard W McCallum

## Mission statement

My primary goal is to continue to serve the *Journal of Investigative Medicine (JIM)* readership, building on the great achievements and legacy of our Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus Dr. Michael J. McPhaul.

Specifically, I hope to expand the global impact of the Journal. The Associate Editors will include MD and PhD scientists who are prestigious in their field of study and hence this will encourage an array of pertinent subjects to be included in the Journal. The intention is to attract readers through the quality of the articles from outstanding researchers which will in turn promote serious discussion about new research and scientific issues. The focus will be on the quality of research regardless of the geographic location of the investigators. The addition of timely commentaries and editorials should help further enhance the impact of the Journal by providing perspective and interpretation of the research presented, and also focus on controversial scientific issues. Other topics for an editorial would include the current status and future opportunities and challenges in medical education, faculty development as well as ethics. In addition, review articles and state-of-the-art contributions would be valuable for our members. I aim to accelerate the publication of high-quality articles by ensuring an efficient peer-review process. I plan to achieve ongoing improvement in the Journal’s impact factor, combined with the ultimate goal to share knowledge and promote excellence—I believe both outcomes can be achieved. The words printed on the *JIM* pages will inform and promote future investigations and hopefully accelerate the translation of novel ideas and facilitate the latest advances into safe and effective treatment strategies. The bottom line for our membership who are fortunate enough to be involved in clinical investigations is to help our patients who have entrusted their care to us, and as Editor-in-Chief of *JIM,* I will always be cognizant of this.

## My strategies to attain these goals

1.  More actively involve the Associate Editors, Editorial Board and reviewers in writing timely editorials on articles being published in the Journal when the topic overlaps their area of interest and expertise or when there is an opportunity to express a seasoned opinion concerning topics or discoveries that have been receiving attention related to ‘scientific breakthroughs’, public health challenges, practice economics, insurance coverage changes that impact on patient care as well as ethical issues that are relevant. A goal would be to have one editorial accompanying each issue

2.  To have a ‘President’s Column’ in order to provide the President of the American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR) with the opportunity to reach out to all members regarding AFMR developments, accomplishments and future challenges. This will be a ‘personal touch’ to our AFMR members and readers from leadership.

3.  The highlights of the four regional meetings should also be briefly summarized, including awards and pictures in a couple of pages of the relevant issues, as well as specific information about upcoming regional meetings. In addition, the presentations at the plenary sessions of these regional meetings could in turn be an article submitted to *JIM*. This approach could also extend to a ‘symposium’ format for one issue of *JIM* per year where a cluster of topics presented at a plenary session are the basis for the symposium, for example, Pulmonary Fibrosis, the Gut Microbiome, Oncology Topic.

4.  Timely reviews and ‘state-of-the-art’ articles would be incorporated into the Journal either by invitation through the Associate Editors and Editorial Board or submissions by *JIM* members. In addition, my familiarity with academic faculty nationwide as well as my national reputation from my career in academic medicine would facilitate submissions for this type of timely update approach.

5.  Highlights of forthcoming issues to be sent to our members ahead of time, and record monthly podcasts with interviews of first authors from these ‘highlight’ articles.

6.  Topics that would be pertinent, appropriate and interesting for our Junior Faculty members should be found in our Journal. Such topics would include: Academic Promotion, Mentoring, How to start a research career; Funding and how to be competitive in grantsmanship, Collaborative Research Opportunities; The busy clinician and how to integrate clinical research. *JIM* should be receptive to Junior Academic Faculty, our future leaders by promoting Faculty Development.

7.  Encourage new members of the AFMR to submit an article to the journal. These new members are our future academicians whose careers are evolving and often with active research programms. I specifically refer to a project which may have already been accepted as an abstract at a regional meeting and in turn can be submitted to ‘their journal’. Many of their mentors will be more senior members of AFMR or in sister societies and already have experience with *JIM* publications and thus should be actively championing this approach.

This summarizes in ‘broad strokes’ some of my vision I have for *JIM*. I plan to be a very ‘hands-on’ Editor-in-Chief attending regional meetings, being at Poster and Plenary sessions and approaching colleagues to remind them to submit their research to *JIM*. I also plan to be accessible at regional meetings by participating in ‘Writing and Publishing’ workshops as well as giving timely updates from the podium about *JIM* and having Editorial Board meetings. I hope the excitement I have for our journal does osmose to all our constituency as we all strive to make these next years an even better era for *JIM*.

## Footnotes

*   Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

*   Competing interests None declared.

*   Patient consent for publication Not required.

*   Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.