Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 26, No 1 (January 1), 2008: pp. 1
© 2008 American Society of Clinical Oncology.
DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2007.14.5920
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF JCO |
The Journal of Clinical Oncology: The Initial Years
Joseph Bertino
The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ
I was both surprised and honored when I was approached by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and asked to be the founding Editor-in-Chief of their new journal, the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO). While my positive experience as associate editor of Blood under Paul Marks had provided some sense of the job at hand, I was a bit hesitant faced with the time commitment and its potential impact on my busy lab and clinical practice. Now, looking back with both pride and respect for the organization that conceived this journal, I am glad that I made the right choice.
The background for the birth of this new publication was published on the first page of the Journal, in my first editorial: "It was clear to many of our membership that our society had matured in size and diversity, and there was a need for a new journal. Dr. Emil Freireich, ASCO president in 1980, charged the Science and Publications Committee with a mandate to develop a plan for a new journal. With the approval of John Ultmann, past president of the Society, and the Board of Directors, the new journal was approved Dr. Emil Frei, III, and his Science and Publications committee worked long and hard to develop guidelines for the new journal, and to select the first editor. Another subcommittee, chaired by Dr. Nathan Berlin, also spent a great deal of time surveying publishers, and finally worked out details of a contract with between the Society and Grune & Stratton, Inc, our publisher."
From the day I took the position, we had 1 year to develop the inaugural issue. Of course, the first question that I had, and that every new journal editor has, was, "who would send their best papers to a new, unrecognized journal?" So I made what was surely my best (maybe only) contributions to the Journal's success: I asked (coerced?) several of the world's leading oncologists to act as Associate Editors—Sam Hellman (radiotherapy), Joe Simone (pediatrics), George Canellos, and Saul Rosenberg (medical oncology). I hired a journal secretary (Ms Nararayan) who worked diligently to set up a tracking system for manuscripts (no easy feat in those days). One could not pick a better first team! Together, by begging and calling and twisting arms, we persuaded some outstanding investigators to send their "good stuff" to JCO. So the first issue had a number of seminal papers/reviews by Gianni Bonnadonna, Saul Rosenberg, Ray Warrell and Joe Burchenal, and Ian Tannock and Kevin Murphy. Contrast the 72 pages published in this first January 1983 issue with the more than 500 pages of articles published per month in 2007. The low point of the Journal was the July 1983 issue—38 pages! However, after that, it was all uphill. Once clinical investigators realized that this was a quality clinical oncology journal with high standards for acceptance, and that their papers would be reviewed in a timely fashion by our outstanding editorial board and by other experts, the Journal really took off. In 1984, we doubled the pages printed, and in 1985, we again doubled the pages printed. The rest, as they say, is history. Features still popular are the editorials and review articles, but original high-quality papers are still the main mission of the Journal.
The inaugural team, composed of editors, staff, the editorial board, and publisher Tom Mackey, who contributed to the first years of the Journal, worked hard to make it a success. However, I would mislead you if I did not acknowledge that we all received great satisfaction from the effort, and that we often had fun in the process. Yearly retreats for a day of discussions on the current state of the Journal and its future directions were always held in a delightful venue (with the possible exception of Bermuda, where we experienced the tail of a hurricane; even the pool had waves). The camaraderie and sharing of ideas was the icing on the cake. Thus, I felt a mixture of relief and sadness, but most importantly, a great feeling of accomplishment and pride, when the Journal moved from Yale to our football nemesis Harvard, under the capable stewardship of George Canellos in 1988. My early years as Editor-in-Chief of JCO remains one of my greatest memories.
AUTHOR'S DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The author(s) indicated no potential conflicts of interest.
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