From the Editor,
With the publication of Volume 20, Number 2 of our journal, Palliative and Supportive Care, we have achieved several important milestones that are note-worthy. I am pleased to say that we have successfully commenced the 20th year of publication of this journal, whose acceptance in the international scientific and academic community is now well established. We had the idealistic mission of providing an intellectual and journalistic home for that small, but growing, band of academicians around the world who were focusing their work in palliative care, with particular emphasis on the psychiatric, psychosocial, existential, and spiritual aspects of care. We have done more than survive, we have thrived! Even in an environment where there are now close to 25 journals dedicated to palliative care and related topics, Palliative and Supportive Care has stood out as an international scientific palliative care journal that has managed to maintain a “literary heart and soul”. Our success is due, in no small part, to the contributions of hundreds of researchers and clinicians from all around the world who have so graciously and generously shared their work with us for publication. Palliative and Supportive Care is truly an international journal, with authors from more than 25 countries submitting thousands of manuscripts for publication to the journal these past 20 years.
In 2011, Palliative and Supportive Care expanded to six issues a year. This allowed us to publish the rapidly growing number of quality research manuscripts and review papers that we have steadily received annually over the last decade. In addition, “Special Issues” have regularly appeared in each volume of the journal, including special issues on “Caregiver” research, “Delirium”, and “Palliative Care Measure Development”. At the start of this past decade, Palliative and Supportive Care officially moved completely to an electronic online system of manuscript submission and review. Authors utilize the online submission system, which can be reached through the Palliative and Supportive Care homepage on the Cambridge Journals Online website, or directly through the following link: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pax.
With the dramatic growth in manuscript submissions and manuscripts published annually, 10 years ago the journal added an international, multidisciplinary group 6 distinguished Associate Editors, including: Allison Applebaum, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA; Matthew Loscalzo, LCSW, City of Hope, USA; Gil Goldzweig, PhD, the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo, Israel; Mayumi Ishida, PhD, Saitma Medical University, Japan; Juhee Cho, PhD, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea; and Gian Domenico Borasio, MD, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. This year, we have added three more distinguished international Associate Editors: Miguel Juliao, MD, PhD, Equipa Communitaria de Suport em Cuidados Paliativos de Sintra, Portugal; William E Rosa NP, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA; and Mathieu Bernard, PhD, Lausanne University, Switzerland. We welcome our new Associate Editors, and also say goodbye and thank you to Professor Simon Wein who served as an Associate Editor and international Coeditor for a decade, as well as to our esteemed colleague Professor Gian Domenico Borasio who completed his term as an Associate Editor at the end of 2021.
My thanks also to our wonderful Editorial Board (including our distinguished Emeritus Board Members) and the hundreds of dedicated reviewers. I know that I speak on behalf of my international coeditor, Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov, MD, PhD, University of Manitoba, Canada, Chochinov and Wein, when I say that these 20 years have been extraordinarily challenging, exciting, and extremely rewarding. However, none of it would be possible without the dedication of our Managing Editor, Theresa Carpenter, and the support of the staff at Cambridge University Press, which publishes our journal.
Finally, a last word of appreciation and thanks to all who support our journal. Together we have created and nurtured something of extraordinary value. We now have the highest Impact Factor for our journal ever at 2.257. What we have created is still growing and transforming. We have seen a tremendous influx of research articles from Turkey, Iran, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, South America, Mexico, and Africa, in addition to a steady flow of research articles from the US, Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, and Australia.
As I write this Editorial, the world has now entered the beginning of the 3rd year of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic in which we have seen 445 million cases and 6 million deaths! We have also entered the 2nd week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with 1.5 million refugees fleeing Ukraine, and the real potential for a massive human tragedy and a true global threat of a war in a nuclear age. The future is unknown, but today we look forward with hope and faith in ourselves and in each other.
