WJS Report

Julie Ann Sosa Editor in Chief WJS

Hello and fall greetings from San Francisco to members of the ISS/SIC! It was great to have seen so many old and new colleagues and friends in Krakow recently. We provided important updates to the general membership at the ISS/SIC business meeting and to our World Journal of Surgery editors and reviewers at our editorial board meeting, too. Here are the highlights.

Dieter Hahnloser

In Krakow, Dr Dieter Hahnloser of Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland stepped down from the WJS editorial board after 10 years of excellent service. He was replaced by Dr Nancy Baxter from Toronto, Canada. Dr Baxter obtained her MD and PhD in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto.

Nancy Baxter

She is board certified in colon and rectal surgery and is a Fellow of the Association for Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Currently, she is the Head of the Division of General Surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital. She holds a Scientist position with the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute and is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Dr. Baxter is also the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Professor in the Department of Surgery and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She holds the position of Provincial GI Endoscopy lead for Cancer Care Ontario. Dr Baxter is an accomplished clinical epidemiologist and health services researcher interested in the effectiveness of cancer screening, long-term cancer survivorship, and the quality of surgical care. We are thrilled to welcome Dr Baxter as our new Associate Editor.

In Krakow, we celebrated Dr Ruth Bush as our WJS Editor of the Year.

Ruth Bush

Dr Bush is Associate Dean for Medical Education and Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Houston College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, USA. Dr Bush is an accomplished vascular surgeon and educator, as well as an attorney. Dr Bush was recognized with this award for her long track record of excellent service to the journal: she has accepted 98% of review invitations, and she has a 6-day turnaround time. To date, she has provided a total of 116 reviews. Dr Bush indeed has set the bar high for her colleagues on the editorial board!

Awards also were distributed to the best WJS papers of 2016 and 2017, as judged by their citations/impact and also a vote by WJS associate editors. Dr Angkoon Anuwong of Bangkok, Thailand received the best paper of 2016 award for his single author manuscript (a rarity today in the era of team science) ‘Transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy vestibular approach: A series of the first 60 human cases.’ Dr Kent Lundholm of Göteborg, Sweden was awarded the best paper of 2017 for his manuscript ‘Long-term results following antibiotic treatment of acute appendicitis in adults’ written with his coauthors Jeanette Hansson Assarsson, Cecilia Engström, and Britt-Marie Iresjö. Finally, Yvonne Chan was granted an honorary fellowship in the ISS/SIC; this honor was bestowed for her many years of faithful service as the publisher of WJS, representing Springer. She stepped down in January 2019.

Yvonne Chan

Participants at the WJS Writers’ Workshop

World Journal of Surgery continues to be a more and more popular destination for original manuscripts from around the world. In 2018, we received a total of 2,096 submissions, up from 1,949 in 2017. So far in 2019, we have received 1,187 submissions, putting us on track to exceed 2,000 submissions again this year. In 2018, our acceptance rate fell to 19%, as a result, and our impact factor climbed again, from 2.766 in 2017 to 2.768 in 2018.

In Krakow, WJS co-sponsored the Fourth Annual Career Advancement Course in conjunction with the ISS/SIC and the Association for Academic Surgery (USA). Attendance was excellent, and feedback from the students, residents and junior faculty in attendance very favorable. WJS put on its Writers’ Workshop, which also was a success based on attendance and feedback.

Hearty thanks go out to our instructors: Bruce Cairns, Anthony Charles, Herb Chen, Imran Hassan, Melina Kibbe, Marco Patti, Sanziana Roman, Tracy Wang, Victor Zaydfudim... and yours truly. We are now exploring ways to potentially take the Writ ers’ Workshop on the road to other scientific meetings around the world in order to increase potential authors’ and readers’ exposure to the journal and the ISS/SIC.

Please look out for new initiatives and innovations around WJS content over the coming months. And please consider submitting your very best science for consideration for publication!

Julie Ann Sosa Editor in Chief WJS