Memoirs of an editor

Abstract

I have taken a wandering course from juvenilities through personalities perhaps to senilities, attempting neither to write a history of my time nor to make a treatise on journalism; but hoping that here and there some kind friends unknown may find something as interesting for them to read as it has been for me to remember. Edward P Mitchell Out of personal preference, I have desisted from annual or even more frequent missives from the Editor, preferring to let the content of the Journal of Clinical Pathology reflect the direction of the editorial team. However, I feel compelled to write something now, partly out of self-indulgence but mainly to document my gratitude to several who have helped me to achieve a lifelong goal. If the truth be told, ever since I first picked up and read a pathology journal as a trainee, I have wanted to be an editor. This desire became even greater as I started submitting papers to these very journals that formed part of my monthly reading diet. I pondered what it would be like to be at the other end of the publishing highway. What actually happens to a paper, what comments are generated and how the final decision is formulated formed a nidus of curiosity that lingered, smouldered and often times erupted (especially when a paper was rejected!). I needed to see what the \u93other side\u94 of publishing was all about. When the opportunity to apply for the Editor\u92s position of the Journal of Clinical Pathology arose, I was filled with a tremendous sense of anticipation and excitement that would have done a ..