On regard at the end of the term of editor-in-chief of journal Reumatizam, 2014–2023

ON REGARD AT THE END OF THE TERM OF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF JOURNAL REUMATIZAM, 2014–2023

OSVRT NA KRAJU MANDATA GLAVNOG UREDNIKA ČASOPISA REUMATIZAM 2014. – 2023.

Simeon Grazio

Department of Rheumatology, Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, University Hospital Centre Sisters of Mercy, Zagreb / Klinika za reumatologiju, fizikalnu medicinu i rehabilitaciju, Klinički bolnički centar Sestre milosrdnice, Zagreb

Corresponding author / Adresa autora za dopisivanje:

Professor Primarius / Prof. prim. dr. sc. Simeon Grazio, MD, PhD / dr. med.

Department of Rheumatology, Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine / Klinika za reumatologiju, fizikalnu medicinu i rehabilitaciju

University Hospital Centre Sisters of Mercy / Klinički bolnički centar Sestre milosrdnice

Vinogradska 29

10 000 Zagreb

E-mail / e-pošta: simeon.grazio@kbcsm.hr

Received: 1^st December 2023

Accepted: 14^th December 2023

Dear readers and esteemed colleagues,

At the end of the two consecutive terms of being the editor-in-chief of our Rheumatism journal, let me take this opportunity to briefly recall the history of this official professional journal of the Croatian Society for Rheumatology of the Croatian Medical Association, with a special focus on the work that we have done over the past 10 years.

Rheumatism is a journal which was first published in 1954 and it has a prominent role in Croatian medicine and beyond. This journal holds a tradition of 70 years of uninterrupted publication, which is something that very few Croatian professional journals, but also rheumatology journals in general, can boast about. In addition to that, Rheumatism is the seventeenth rheumatology journal in the world. The journal was founded by Primarius Drago Čop, MD, at the time of commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Croatian Medical Association and its journal named Liječnički vjesnik (in English: The Medical Journal). Prim. Čop, the first editor-in-chief of Rheumatism (1954–1963), founded this journal so that it would represent an informative and educational reading for physicians who encounter rheumatic patients in clinical practice, and also for it to arouse interest in rheumatic diseases. The journal was first intended for postgraduate training of family medicine physicians. When it comes to different columns in the journal that were published depending on the availability of the interesting material, some of them, which sparked the readers’ interest for a reason, were Ekscerpti (in English: Excerpts) and Referati iz časopisa (in English: Papers from Journals). From 1954 until 1955, at the time when literature related to Croatian rheumatology was scarce and almost inexistent, the important supplements Osnovi praktične reumatologije (in English: Introduction to Practical Rheumatology) and Reumatološki vademecum (in English: Rheumatological Vade Mecum) were published, with the latter also representing the then official European guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of rheumatic diseases. From 1961 until 1963, the journal was called Praxis medica —Reumatizam. It is worth noting that, in accordance with the basic ideas of the journal, in all issues of the first year and in the first issue of the second year, a translation of the well-known prestigious text Primer on the Rheumatic Diseases of the American College of Rheumatology was published.

Prim. Čop occasionally commissioned the world’s leading rheumatologists to write an article for the Rheumatism journal, and from the very beginning almost every published article had a summary written in one of the world languages. After the tragic death of Prim. Čop, the role of the editor-in-chief was given to Prof. Theodor Dürrigl, MD, PhD, who was previously the secretary of the journal. Prof. Dürrigl served as the editor-in-chief of the Rheumatism journal for 27 years (from 1963 until 1990). In his desire to make the journal more interesting and with plenty of educational material, Prof. Dürrigl introduced some new columns, and, after obtaining permission from the other respective journals, he introduced exams for the purpose of examining the knowledge of physicians, reports from intersectional meetings and encouraged the publication of a collection of papers in non-standard issues, and many other things. The progress of the overall profession and particularly the new scientific knowledge are responsible for the gradual improvement in the quality of the journal. The other experts who took over the role of the editor-in-chief from Prof. Dürrigl were Prof. Ivo Jajić, MD, PhD (1991–1998) and Prim. Goran Ivanišević, MSc (1999–2013). The journal managed to stay on track and maintain its continuity of publication, with two issues being published annually, and with number 2 becoming the congress issue related to the start of the organization of the Annual Congresses of the Croatian Society for Rheumatology (since 1999). In 2008, Prim. Ivanišević published the bibliography called Reumatizam, Bibliografija 1954.–2008., which contained articles from all 55 years of the journal’s existence, from the first issue published in 1954 until the second issue published in 2008. In addition to the standard issues, all of the non-standard issues of the journal were included in this bibliography as well.

By taking over the role of the editor-in-chief, my desire was to improve the journal in every aspect. In order to motivate my fellow rheumatologists to submit their manuscripts for them to be selected for the Rheumatism journal, as well as to review these manuscripts, I decided to significantly increase the number of members in the editorial board. The members of the editorial bord have agreed to regularly publish a certain number of articles as the first three authors or as the last author / corresponding author, and this type of approach was adhered to in practice for the most part. The act of increasing the number of the editorial board members also refers to the invitation that was sent to eminent foreign experts who have accepted my invitation during 2017 and 2018: Xenofon Baraliakos (Germany), Laszlo Czirjak (Hungary), Iztok Holc (Slovenia), Marco Matucci Cerinic (Italy), Mevludin Mekić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Denis Poddubnyy (Germany), Zoltan Szekanecz (Hungary) and Ladislav Šenolt (Czech Republic). In addition to that, Armen Yuri Gasparyan, the editor-in-chief of one of the world’s most prominent journals, Rheumatology International, and Olena Zimba, an expert in the field of editorial work for internationally recognized journals, have joined our editorial board as a scientific advisor and editor in the field of Education and Social Media.

The instructions to the authors and the editorial work rules have been adjusted in accordance with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and ethical standards according to the requirements of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and CSE (Council of Science Editors). The necessary documents were filled out by the author when submitting their work. In addition to that, we have also obtained a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), a standard unique number that is assigned to each article for the purpose of its identification, and we have also met all other administrative requirements for journal indexing in one of the world’s databases. We have to mention one of the most important achievements: the new official website of the journal, where you can find all the articles from 2004 to the present day, which were also published on Hrčak, the central portal of Croatian scientific and professional journals. You can access the articles completely free of charge, one is the so-called platinum open access. The journal also underwent visual changes in terms of creating the thematic link of the cover to rheumatology, and it experienced modernization in the area of graphic design.

During my term as the editor-in-chief, I have actively encouraged all the colleagues to submit manuscripts in order for them to be selected for the Rheumatism journal. Moreover, after every Annual Congress of the Croatian Society for Rheumatology, I invited the authors in writing to provide their expert contribution to the journal. In that ten-year period, we managed to publish two regular issues annually, along with a congress supplement, including one issue that was published to commemorate the occasion of the Central European Congress of Rheumatology which was held in Zagreb in 2018. From a panoramic type of display of news from the profession and the activities of the professional society, I made an effort to direct the path of Rheumatism towards the publication of professional papers of the highest quality. I believed that it is more appropriate, considering the new trends and technologies, to present the information about professional meetings and other similar activities on the official website of the Society, in journals of different profiles intended for a wider readership and on social media platforms. I made it as a rule for all manuscripts submitted for the purpose of being selected for the journal, except for the commissioned review papers, to be blindly reviewed by two experts who were holders of PhD or who were given the title of Primarius. This was done for the purpose of achieving the highest possible quality. Furthermore, this resulted in a gradual improvement in the quality of the papers published in the Rheumatism journal, and the overall quality of the journal was catapulted to a level that other reputable journals strive for. Since 2019, the journal has been published in a bilingual manner, in Croatian and in English, with bilingual presentation within individual articles. In 2020, we have established a journal award for the best paper published in the Rheumatism journal in the previous year, which is selected by the members of the editorial board as another incentive for the publication of papers in the journal.

Throughout this whole period, the support of Prof. Branimir Anić, MD, PhD, the president of the Croatian Society for Rheumatology, who simultaneously served as the editor-in-chief of the Liječnički vjesnik journal, was extremely important to us. The Liječnički vjesnik journal provided supplements for the Rheumatism journal, thus enabling it to continue the steady path of its publication and it also proved to be helpful in our endeavours to obtain a license for the purpose of meeting certain administrative requirements. Continuous funding of the journal by the Croatian Society for Rheumatology was a prerequisite for the engagement of permanent external associates: a proofreader for the Croatian language, a proofreader and translator for the English language, and a graphic designer.

In the last ten-year period, Rheumatism was omitted from the Medline database, so the last issues published in that database were those from 2016. With this happening, the Rheumatism journal, which was a part of that database since its very beginning in 1954, experienced the same fate of numerous other world journals, as a result of the stricter selection criteria of the aforementioned journal database. With the previously mentioned improvements that were introduced to the Rheumatism journal, which were in the initial stage of implementation prior to this happening, Rheumatism has managed to meet the main formal conditions for its introduction into this or some other database, such as Scopus, for example. The part that we are lacking in is the strict up-to-dateness in relation to the regular publication of the journal, which is a key requirement for indexing in some world-recognized journal databases. This regular rhythm of journal publication can only be established through a greater influx of quality manuscripts and greater promptness of reviewers. The issue is that the pool for both of these is relatively small in our case. Therefore, in the previous period, we have thought about expanding the base of potential authors as well as reviewers in such a way as to include the rheumatology societies of our neighbouring countries, for example, Slovenia, in our base of authors. Unfortunately, this still remains as an idea that has not been put into practice. In addition to that, we thought about completely switching to English language, which would increase the interest of potential authors beyond Croatia, and improve the possibility of plagiarism checks. However, considering the relatively small influx of papers and the fact that I was nearing the end of my second term as the editor-in-chief of the Rheumatism journal at the time when that proposal was made, I opted not to make a decision on this matter. These are all challenges that will be tackled by the new editor-in-chief, and I hope that they will manage to find a solution for all of the ongoing issues.

Finally, as we are taking a look-back at the historical development of this journal and expressing our gratitude to the previous editors-in-chief, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the authors and reviewers, as well as the collaborators within the journal’s editorial board who I have had the pleasure of cooperating with during my ten-year term as the editor-in-chief of the Rheumatism journal. I would also like to express my gratitude to our volunteers, Marijana Bregni and Draženka Kontek. We have managed to keep this journal going and improve its quality through our joint efforts in challenging times, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. I strongly believe that Rheumatism will continue to be recognized as a renowned rheumatology journal, and that its quality and visibility will prosper even further over time (1–9).

Warmest regards and best wishes to you all!