Thoughts on the Bulletin.

In this issue of the Bulletin, Mulita and colleagues1 present a 10-year analysis of publication trends for articles about anesthesia history. They conclude that the publication of history articles is “low” at 1.25% of all articles. Even this frequency is inflated. Subtracting the “Cover Notes” of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care and the “Reflections” in Anesthesiology leaves a more indicative estimate of about 0.7%. To be sure, there are legitimate concerns about this article: the absence of factoring in the number of submissions; the lack of comparison to other specialties; and the role of authors’ perceptions of the ability to get published. But these concerns do not outweigh the need to discuss the conclusions. How legitimate is the value judgment that mainstream journals publish too few history articles? That depends on the mission. While missions of journals vary, the British Medical Journal provides a good summary: “Our mission is to lead the debate on health and to engage, inform, and stimulate doctors, researchers, and other health professionals in ways that will improve outcomes for patients. We aim to help doctors to make better decisions.”2 All the while, among other matters, editors must keep an eye on the influential impact factor, which reflects the number of citations of the journal’s articles. The American football coach Bill Parcells quipped, “You are what your record says you are,” in response to teams claiming that they were better than their won-lost records indicated. According to Parcells, the number of history articles published is the correct number of articles for those journals. I agree. The characteristics of published history articles reflect in large part the cachectic academic discipline of anesthesia history in the United States. Reversing this state requires a robust academic home. Without a home, young academics struggle to develop careers, senior academics do not receive proper credit within the anesthesiology community, and the anesthesia history community withers. Successful academic homes have meaningful journals. A respected Bulletin of Anesthesia History will provide a home for aspiring authors to hone their skills and gain academic credibility. It will spur interest in history, which will increase publications in mainstream journals. The right Bulletin will undergird a credible, self-sustaining academic discipline. The progenitor of the Bulletin, the Anesthesia History Association Newsletter, was started in 1982 by the first editor, Selma H. Calmes, MD. Dr. Calmes was followed by C. Ron Stephen, MD, and who later passed the pen to my immediate predecessor, Doris K. Cope, MD. These editors (with unflagging support from many others, including Roderick K. Calverley, MD, and A. J. Wright, MLS) brought the Bulletin from a “cut-and-paste” kitchen-table newsletter to being recognized within the history community as the United States journal for anesthesia history. The next step is to move that recognition into the mainstream academic community. To do so requires investments that are neither simple nor risk-free. So I am asking readers to weigh in. What should the Bulletin be? Whom should it serve? Most importantly, do we want to take that next step? I invite your thoughts.