Anniversary Editorial

With this issue, the Journal of Reconstructive Microsurgery enters its 20th year of publication. That sounds like a lot of years; however, when we realize that we have just left our teenage years, we can perhaps see it from a better perspective. As a living entity, the Journal's reflections on the past 19 years are similar to anyone's memories of an ongoing, challenging, and successful undertaking. The fact that we have prevailed and continue to provide our readers with the latest and most exciting advances in microvascular and microneural surgery is most gratifying.

As microneurovascular techniques have become commonplace in a variety of specialities, our original interests in new technical ideas, significant basic science, surgical anatomy as it applies to our areas of interest, and clinical and basic science historical reviews still remain. We have followed with great attention the development of the latest breakthroughs in the field of peripheral nerve regeneration. The continuing interests of our contributors and the subjects of the annual abstracts from our three supporting societies have served to illuminate the path which the Journal follows.

Despite the significant increase in submissions year by year, our early, very rapid review process has allowed us to maintain, for the most part, a rapid publication turnaround time. We continue to try for a 6- to 8-month publication period for your articles. We believe that we remain one of the few, if not the only specialty journal, that offers in-house editing and rewriting of publishable articles of scientific merit, thus militating against the endless back-and-forth journey of manuscripts noted in some other journals. That we must be doing something right is validated not only by the huge increase in submissions over the years, but also by the growing number of subscribers and readers, the number of citations our published articles receive in the literature and databases, and the freely offered meticulous and provocative discussions of articles by our reviewers as part of their reviews and in their invited discussions.

As usual, our readers, editorial staff, and sponsoring societies-the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, and the American Society for the Peripheral Nerve-help maintain our expertise and are encouraged to share their ideas and opinions about improvement and excellence of publication. Our new masthead reflects the most up-to-date areas of expertise in the current group serving on our Editorial Board.

My thanks and appreciation go to everyone, especially to Dr. Landres, our Associate Editor, who has played and will play a part in our continuing success and our enviable history. A happy and healthy 20th year to us all. On to the next decade!