(Editor-in-Chief)Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
For a moment, at the beginning of another year, Id like to stop and talk about the film actress, the movie star, Rosalind Russell. Rosalind Russell died of breast cancer in 1976. At the time I was a busy medical student at the University of Glasgow, but I remember it well.
Some of you will remember Rosalind Russell as the showbiz mom Rose to Nathalie Woods Gypsy Rose Lee, a stripper, in Gypsy. Others, perhaps even a majority, will remember her as Hildy Johnson, the apotheosis of the wisecracking dame, in the screwball comedy classic His Girl Friday. This has a particular resonance for me now as most of Hildys wisecracks are traded with the smooth talking editor Walter Burns, played by Cary Grant. Rarely in editorial meetings of Annals of Oncology do I get to use lines like this: Hildy Johnson, "He treats me like a woman;" Walter Burns, "What did I treat you like? A water buffalo?"
But I digress. I remember Rosalind Russell for her part as Christine Manson, the wife and inspiration of the idealistic young Scottish doctor in the 1938 film The Citadel. It is said that the immense popularity of this film, and the A. J. Cronin novel on which it is based, played a role in paving the way to the British National Health Service formed only a decade later. I can only record that its effect on me was and is inspirational. Cronin, himself a medical graduate of the University of Glasgow, perfectly distilled the bittersweet experience of beginning medical practice and the need to hold on to our dream of doing something good, something valuable, the citadel of the title. The film is further blessed with great performances by great stars, Rex Harrison, Ralph Richardson, Robert Donat, who was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Dr Manson, and Rosalind Russell. The part of the stoic wife who never waivers in her faith in her husband might easily have played as cliché, but Rosalind Russell gives us the rounded character Cronin wrote, and I for one honour her for it.
Four years into my term as Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Oncology the dream of doing something valuable and good is still very much alive. My wife, no doubt, can take some part of the credit for that, but there is a much larger cast that I, like some gushing Oscar winner, must also acknowledge. The Associate Editors and the members of the Editorial Board, whose names you will find at the front of this volume, are high on that list. In particular, I would want to thank here Bertrand Coiffier whose work as an Associate Editor has done so much to maintain the reputation of Annals of Oncology as a journal publishing first rate research in the haematological malignancies. Bertrand now steps down as an editor, but I am pleased to announce that he will be succeeded by Volker Diehl. I am also delighted to welcome Philippe Rougier and Daniel Vorobiof to the Editorial Board.
Thanks are always due to you the reader and you the author, who put your time and your trust in Annals of Oncology to do the best for you and your work. In this respect, I should mention recent discussion among the Associate Editors to the effect that we would welcome more high-quality translational studies, where the emphasis may perhaps lean more towards the bench than the bedside. Similarly, we are keen to see the journal publish more articles on chemoprevention research and on cancer in the elderly. I dont intend that we will compromise our standards to see articles on these subjects in the journal, but we are keen to consider as many manuscripts as possible.
And while we are thanking people, let us thank the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) for its continued support of what we are trying to do with Annals of Oncology, and Oxford University Press (OUP) our publisher. Exactly 2 years ago I wrote [1] of my hopes for this journal in its new incarnation with OUP, and the passage of those 2 years has done nothing to diminish those hopes. In the coming year we plan to repeat the process of awarding prizes recognising the best paper published over those years in each of the following categories: translational science; phase I; phase II; and phase III. I am confident that we will find this process as rewarding as last time [2], but even so, I must acknowledge some wonderful work that will not be eligible for prizes: insightful editorials (see, for example, [35]), rewarding reviews (see, for example, [68]) and fundamentally important projects, such as the European Code Against Cancer [9] and EUROPREVAL [10].
Finally, as with all good Oscar acceptance speeches, we come to thank those unnamed people who know who they are, in our case the referees, who commit their own time and effort to the quality of our journal, and the editorial staff, who work to make the journal happen every month.
Considering our dream of doing good, our idea of a citadel, I like very much the comment of the poet W. H. Auden: "Civilization is a little citadel of light in a malignant sea of darkness". So let me close by telling you about work being done to increase access to Annals of Oncology. Through initiatives operated by OUP, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications, not-for-profit institutions in over 120 developing or middle-income countries are now able to apply for free or receive greatly discounted online access to the journalover 700 institutes have registered for access through these initiatives.
D. Kerr(Editor-in-Chief)Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
REFERENCES
1. Kerr DJ. Per ardua ad astra. Ann Oncol 2002; 13: 7.
2. Kerr DJ. Pride and judgement: the Annals of Oncology prizes. Ann Oncol 2002; 13: 817818.
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4. Soria J-C, Le Chevalier T. Is cisplatin still the best platinum compound in non-small-cell lung cancer? Ann Oncol 2002; 13: 15151517.
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8. Turner NC, Dusheiko G, Jones A. Hepatitis C and B-cell lymphoma. Ann Oncol 2003; 14: 13411345.
9. Boyle P, Autier P, Bartelink H et al. European Code Against Cancer and scientific justification: third version (2003). Ann Oncol 2003; 14: 9731005.
10. Capocaccia R, Colonna M, Corazziari I et al. Measuring cancer prevalence in Europe: the EUROPREVAL project. Ann Oncol 2003; 13: 831839.[CrossRef][ISI]