On the shoulders of giants.

In 2018, after having participated for many years as a member of the editorial board of Revista Brasileira de Anestesiologia, I was honored with the invitation to be editor-in-chief of the journal, a major tool of scientific promotion and projection of Brazilian anesthesiology worldwide. The period between the invitation to take over the editorial leadership of the journal and transfer the work to the forthcoming editor-in-chief brought many challenges, and fortunately, was crowned by many victories.

The time has come to thank everyone who collaborated to the growth of Revista Brasileira de Anestesiologia (RBA) and to it being reindexed as the Brazilian Journal of Anesthesiology (BJAN). Changing the name from Portuguese to English, currently considered the language of science, represented a major advance. The brackets at the beginning and end of PubMed titles, indicating publications in languages other than English, limiting access to articles, likelihood of citations, and the impact of journals, are now history.

The Brazilian Society of Anesthesiology (SBA) and the editors-in-chief that preceded me were visionary for assuring the journal to be available free since its launching, 70 years ago. The phrase “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”, attributed to Isaac Newton, reflects the importance of continuity in work in order to succeed. Fostering open access publication and indexation on several databases makes it easier to access the complete journal, one of the pillars of open science. Encouraging authors to register complete data of articles in dedicated repositories, the possibility of publishing preprints of specific articles considered of high scientific value by the Editorial Board, and the current discussions on open review align BJAN toward the trend of major contemporary scientific publications.

In 2019, we received free mentorship from UK EQUATOR Centre researchers, the Centre for Statistics in Medicine (CSM), of the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), of Oxford University, in the United Kingdom, to adopt guides for writing scientific articles as a tool to increase accuracy and clarity of research articles, which resulted in a specific editorial on the topic and including them in the revision of instructions to authors. With the help of the associate editors and the coeditor of BJAN, the instructions to authors have been reviewed annually, contributing to the better quality of manuscripts received for assessment by the editorial board and peer review. The implementation of a structured checklist for submission of articles with the mandatory use of writing guides has improved the quality of articles, even before they are sent for peer review.

In addition to the partnership with UK EQUATOR Centre researchers, between 2019 and 2021, the proportion of international members on the editorial board increased to roughly 30%, counting on researchers from the best universities in the world, all of them willing to collaborate with the growth of the main journal of anesthesiology in Latin America. Authors from several countries have submitted their articles to BJAN (Fig. 1), resulting in a major indicator of internationalization of the journal. Such indicator is aligned to the guidelines of Elsevier, the publishing company hired by SBA, and also of SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), the digital library conceived by FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) to allow free access to Brazilian scientific journals, in partnership with the Centro Latino-Americano e do Caribe de Informação em Ciências da Saúde (BIREME), currently with the support of the CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico). Additionally, filiation to ABEC (Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos), and the ongoing process for filiation of the editor-in-chief to WAME (World Association of Medical Editors) is allowing BJAN to integrate more to contemporary editorial processes and critical analysis of open science.

Figure 1

Visual representation of the frequency of origin by country, organization, and authors who submitted articles to BJAN between 2019 and 2021.

With the systematic adoption of ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID), a persistent digital identifier, we have classified the diversity of authors who have submitted manuscripts to BJAN between 2019 and 2021, as well as the teaching and research organizations of origin (Fig. 1). The effort to add value to BJAN aims to contribute to increasing the impact factor, making it attractive to the authors of major scientific production in Brazilian anesthesiology and creating a virtuous cycle toward excellence.

The ongoing support of the directors, members, and board of SBA was essential in order to implement the guidelines and action plans defined in the strategic plan developed by the members of the editorial board in 2019. The introduction of the editorial office, with an expert and motivated staff, was a unique contribution to the ongoing improvement of BJAN. In addition to the new layout of articles, in 2020 we adopted different art formats for covers, related to the main article in the issue (Fig. 2), replacing the fixed covers adopted until then. Most covers of 2020 and 2021 were accompanied by editorials and/or infographics on the same topic, also with promotion through mini-interviews with authors on social media and on the new journal website, everything contributing to the optimization of BJAN's altimetric indexes. A more widespread promotion of the journal adds value to its social role of providing readers with scientific knowledge and evidence that contribute to a safe rationale for management in clinical anesthesia.

Figure 2

BJAN covers between 2019 and 2021.

The expansion in the number of associate editors, three until 2019, eight in 2020, and 16 in 2021, comprised by professionals with in-depth knowledge of specific areas of anesthesiology, pain, or perioperative medicine, was essential to improve the assessment process of articles submitted to BJAN. Up to 2018, the then RBA invited only members of the editorial board for peer review, a process that was expanded as of 2019, allowing increase in the number of reviews per article by reviewers from several parts of the world, as is the case of major scientific journals. Considering that peer review is essential to improve manuscripts, associate editors guarantee the essential networking for expansion and training of reviewers – indirectly contributing to the scientific quality of Brazilian anesthesiology –, and have performed critical analysis and helped in the final decision on the articles to be published. Continuing to work to improve peer review and decrease time between submission and the final decision on rejecting or accepting articles submitted for publication are the major challenges to BJAN.

During my time as editor-in-chief, we celebrated 70 years of BJAN, which was documented on a specific editorial2 and on podcasts with previous journal editors. The longevity of BJAN should be celebrated because it ranks among the oldest anesthesiology journals, one of the few with non-stop publication since its establishment. The whole journal collection, since 1951, is available now with free access on https://www.bjan-sba.org/archive.

Now, upon transferring the editorial lead to Dr. André Prato Schmidt, I am certain that BJAN will be in excellent hands. Dr. Schmidt has a degree in Medicine by the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and I met him during specialization training in Anesthesiology at Universidade de São Paulo (USP). He was granted the Higher Title in Anesthesiology by the Sociedade Brasileira de Anestesiologia (TSA/SBA), certification in Pain Management by the Associação Médica Brasileira, the European diploma in Anesthesia and Intensive Care, a Master's degree in Pneumology by UFRGS, PhD in Biological Sciences by UFRGS and a post-doctorate degree in Anesthesiology by USP. He is currently anesthesiologist and member of the transplant team of Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre and of Santa Casa de Porto Alegre, coordinator responsible for the Anesthesia Service of Hospital Nossa Senhora da Conceição, and also works in clinical anesthesia and pain medicine at other organizations in Porto Alegre. He is co-responsible for the Teaching and Training Center of Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA) and collaborating mentor of the post-graduate program in Biological Sciences of UFRGS and of the post-graduate program in Anesthesiology, Surgery and Perioperative Medicine of the Faculdade de Medicina da USP. He has published over 70 scientific articles, has over 1,600 international citations and a h-index of 25. He was a reviewer for over 30 international journals, besides BJAN, and in 2019 became associate editor of BJAN. The leadership profile of Dr. Schmidt, associated with his excellent academic training, certainly will contribute to enhance the Brazilian Journal of Anesthesiology.

In addition to my best wishes and much success to the new editor-in-chief, I thank immensely the editors who preceded me, the Sociedade Brasileira de Anestesiologia board, that trusted my work and supported me, the staff of the editorial office for its tireless work, the members of the editorial board from 2019 to 2021, who helped build the guidelines to modernize BJAN, and the associate editors, who worked so hard to carry out the strategic plan and the editorial process. I am specially very thankful to all those who agreed to review articles, as I believe that through peer reviewing we can enhance BJAN.

All the work performed has made BJAN ready to grow even more, promoting and fostering scientific progress by spreading new knowledge in anesthesiology to Brazil and to the world.

Conflicts of interest

The author declares no conflicts of interest.