It was said some years ago that «the shortest line inscience, as well as in love, is not the straight one»1. Thisturned out to be true for Acta Médica del Valle, ascientific journal launched in Cali, Colombia in 1970,when Rodrigo Guerrero et al., dreamt of having aperiodical to disseminate medical information –primarily in southwestern Colombia. Moreover, JorgeLega Siccar, president of this journal’s first editorialcommittee, envisioned that manuscripts coming fromthe «whole republic», as well as from overseas, wouldarrive at the editorial office of the newly born scientificjournal. And they accomplished it

Leon-Sarmiento, Fidias E

English

Leon-Sarmiento, Fidias E.

University of Toronto Research Repository

Colombia Médica is now indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed: A dream come
true

TSpace Repository

Leon Sarmiento, Fidias E

Biblioteca Digital de la Universidad del Valle

265Colombia Médica                         Vol. 42 Nº 3, 2011 (Julio-Septiembre)EDITORIALColombia Médica is now indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed:A dream come true© 2011 Universidad del Valle, Facultad de Salud                                             Colomb Med. 2011; 42: 265-6It was said some years ago that «the shortest line inscience, as well as in love, is not the straight one»1. Thisturned out to be true for Acta Médica del Valle, ascientific journal launched in Cali, Colombia in 1970,when Rodrigo Guerrero et al., dreamt of having aperiodical to disseminate medical information –primarily in southwestern Colombia. Moreover, JorgeLega Siccar, president of this journal’s first editorialcommittee, envisioned that manuscripts coming fromthe «whole republic», as well as from overseas, wouldarrive at the editorial office of the newly born scientificjournal. And they accomplished it.Then, Francisco Falabella et al., who took the leadfrom 1973 until 1998, dreamt of increasing the journal’simpact and reputation throughout Colombia. Thus, in1980, the Journal’s name was changed to ColombiaMédica, and hundreds of high-quality manuscriptswere published in paper form only, an uninterruptedjourney lasting 25 years – from 1970 to 1995, andalways supported by Universidad del Valle also locatedin Cali. During this time, Colombia Médicadisseminated important and groundbreaking research.For example, in 1981, Zaninovic et al., published on adisease prevalent in southwestern Colombia, charac-terized by spastic paraparesis, a disorder later associatedwith a number of environmental cofactors2. Thisresearch attracted the attention of the World HealthOrganization to this medical problem. Also, among thedreams of this editorial group was to set up an electronicedition of Colombia Médica, which was posted on theweb page: http://colombiamedica. univalle.edu.co in1995. And this was accomplished!During the next ten years, Colombia Médica wasedited by Guillermo Llanos et al. They up-dated thedream, working hard to be certain that this journalappeared in the most important Colombian andworldwide scientific databases. And they accomplishedit!!Because of these efforts, Colombia Médica’s edito-rial group worked harder and got this periodical indexedin 23 different scientific databases. In 2008, the journalwas accepted by the Institute for Scientific Information(ISI), a private institution that calculates the so-calledimpact factor of every journal3. It is noteworthy that thefirst numerical impact factor given to Colombia Médi-ca by ISI increased from 0.11 in 2010 to 0.24 in 2011(in-house calculation). It demonstrated an importantincrease for a ‘new’ journal like Colombia Médica insuch bibliometric databases. Moreover, the H index,which measures both productivity and impact of thepublished work of a scientist or scholar, was 2.0. Theseachievements very likely account for the increase in theworldwide credibility of this journal, as reflected in thenumber of daily free downloads from the web site,which have increased from 400 in 20084 to 2500 today,and it is still counting. Because of this, ColombiaMédica is accepting now more English languagemanuscripts, as has occurred in other Latin-Americanjournals, without disregarding Spanish publications. Itis hoped that these efforts will increase journal visibilityand the number of international citations. In line withthese achievements, it is encouraging to see that thenumbers of international collaborators have increasedduring the past two years, and many more referees arenow from countries other than Colombia. Lastly, thetime between reception and final approval of articleshas been greatly improved. Looking back on theseresults we could say for sure that the editorial committeeaccomplished it!!!Inspired by this success, a new editorial team led byJulián Herrera et al., dreamt of further progress.Accordingly, in 2011, they asked the MEDLINE ReviewCommittee to evaluate Colombia Médica’s achieve-ments. This Committee evaluates the suitability ofjournals for incorporation into MEDLINE on the basisof their geographic and scientific scope, quality, andtypes of contents, quality of editorial work, productionquality, and language5-7. Needless to say, they accom-plished it!!!!.It must be remembered that MEDLINE, producedby the U.S. National Library of Medicine, is the largestand most important database in the biomedical sciences;it is among the most important engines that drive thevehicle of science toward excellence. Investigators,266Colombia Médica                  Vol. 42 Nº 3, 2011 (Julio-Septiembre)editors, publishers, and the scientific community areaware of this! It is also the main source for everyoneundertaking biomedical literature search, as well as themain source for evidence-based medicine guidelines,meta-analysis research, and systematic reviews6.MEDLINE contains around 14 million records ofreferences, beginning in 1950, obtained from morethan 10,000 different journals, of which nearly 5,000are currently indexed. However, at the end of the 20thcentury, no Colombian journal was indexed byMEDLINE. At present, only around 2% of the scientificjournals presently indexed by MEDLINE are fromSpanish speaking countries7, despite the large amountof research done in this geographical region. This is inpart due to the quality of some manuscripts, as well asthe geographical location, among other factors,precluding their citation by international journals8.Colombia Médica overcame these and many otherobstacles. And with perseverance, a very importantcharacteristic found in successful people and enterprises,the Journal obtained a place in the MEDLINE elite.And everybody accomplished it!!!!!For these, and many other reasons, we encouragescientists looking to disseminate findings fromtraditional or novel research, such as synthetic biology,space biomedicine, restorative medicine, robotic neuro-rehabilitation, computational biosciences, or nanotech-nology, among other disciplines, to opt for ColombiaMédica as their publication venue, following theinternational guidelines of biomedical publications.We are very confident that continued improvement inthis journal will help to place not only ColombiaMédica, but Colombia as a whole, in the forefront ofinternational biomedical sciences. Therefore, thechallenge for all of us is to never to stop doing our best,because the limits of scientific publications, includingthe ones established for Colombia Médica, are endless.In doing so, we will be able to say, for sure, at the endof this century: we made it!Fidias E. Leon-Sarmiento, MD, MSc, PhD*1. The Smell and Taste Center, Department of Otorhynolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery,University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA2. Unit of Parkinson and Movement Disorders, MedicienciasResearch Group, Universidad  Nacional; Centro de Investiga-ción y Referencia Nacional (CIRENA), Fundación NeuromédicaColombo-Americana «Ramón & Cajal», Bogotá, Colombia.*The author would like to thank Dr. Richard L . Doty, PhD,for permanent support.This work was supported by a grant from the Department ofDefense, USA: USAMRAA, W81XWH-09-1-0467Correspondence: Fidias E. Leon-Sarmiento, MD, MSc, PhDe-mail: feleones@gmail.comREFERENCES1. Leon-Sarmiento FE, ed. VIH & Los Virus de la ImaginaciónHumana. Bogotá: Celsus, 2001.2. Zaninovic´ V, Biojó R, Barreto P. Paraparesia espástica delPacífico. Colomb Med. 1981; 12: 111-7.3. Leon-Sarmiento FE, Leon-S ME, Contreras VA. El impactodel factor del impacto: ¿mito o realidad? Colomb Med. 2007;38: 290-6.4 . Leon-Sarmiento FE. Colombia Médica en el ISI: nuevo retopara el siglo XXI. Colomb Med. 2008; 39: 310-11.5. Roselli D. Latin American biomedical publications: the caseof Colombia in Medline. Med Educat. 1998; 32: 274-7.6. Dickersin K, Scherer R, Lefebvre C. Identifying relevantstudies for systematic reviews. BMJ. 1994; 309: 1286-91.7. Burstein Z, Mayta-Tristan P. La revista peruana de medicinaexperimental y salud pública ahora indizada en MEDLINE/Index Medicus. Rev Peru Med Exp Salud Publica, 2010; 27:312-4.8. Meneghini R, Packer AL, Nassi-Calo L. Articles by LatinAmerican authors in prestigious journals have fewer citations.Plos One. 31: e3804.

Colombia Médica is now indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed : A dream come true.

Colombia Médica is now indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed: A dream come true.

Colombia Médica is now indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed: A dream come true.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Toronto Research Repository

TSpace Repository

Biblioteca Digital de la Universidad del Valle