Passing the baton

Uday Khopkar

 Editor (2003-2008), Department of Dermatology, Seth GS Medical College and Kind Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India

Correspondence Address:
Uday Khopkar
Department of Dermatology, Seth GS Medical College and Kind Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai
India

Dear Members,

I end my editorial term in Dec 2008 and welcome the new editorial team led by Dr. DM Thappa who takes over the journal from January 2009. The year 2008 was a year of change for IJDVL. The challenge was to seamlessly transfer all the editorial responsibilities of the IJDVL to the incoming editorial team. I think we have successfully achieved this through step by step transfer of the responsibilities during the year. I thank Dr. Thappa for his cooperation and keenness during this transfer process. I wish Dr. Thappa and his team more success than we have been blessed with.

The year 2008 has been busier than ever for IJDVL with increasing number of articles being submitted on account of our indexation with Pubmed and Science Citation Index-e. A good percentage, nearly 30%, of the original articles, brief reports and even case reports and letters were from authors outside India. To accommodate the rising number of articles from India and abroad, also with the intent of encouraging new authors, we increased the number of pages printed. I must mention here that this was only possible due to solid financial support provided by the pharmaceutical companies.

During this year we published two symposia on subjects relevant to our country viz. HIV infection and Arsenicosis in India. I was also fortunate to be associated with the publication of a unique supplement on Dermatosurgery Task Force Guidelines. It has really set an example of seriously and meticulously tackling issues of everyday import to our members and which fall outside the purview of dermatology texts.

This is my last report to you and I thank you all for giving me, my team and the journal your attention, affection and appreciation. I thank my committed editorial team for their all round efforts to improve the journal and for spending a substantial part of their life for this mission. A million thanks are due to the reviewers who not just helped in selection of good article but added value to the selected articles. And above all, I thank our hardworking authors for sending their best material to IJDVL.

A large part of the success of the IJDVL has been due to the persevering efforts of Dr. DK Sahu and his dedicated team at Medknow Publications. The IJDVL manuscript submission site is being upgraded continuously by them and I am sure you must be happy with the new looks of the website.

Like the last five years, the journal has performed well on the financial front. Starting with the seed money of Rs. 6 lakhs provided by my predecessor 6 years back, we have now accumulated reserves of about Rs. 70 lakhs. This is in addition to the IJDVL deposits with the centre that amount to about 1.6 crores. I am sure this financial strength will allow the new team to maintain and improve the technical quality of the journal in the years to come. I thank and congratulate the successive IADVL central executives and especially the treasurers for their visionary money management that has led IJDVL to this position of financial strength.

Riding on the back of this financial strength, we have begun the IJDVL e-library project with the intention of improving access to dermatology journals for our editorial board members including state IADVL nominees to the editorial board. This ambitious project should hopefully open the wealth of information to academic minds hitherto denied that access.

On this positive note, I once again welcome the new editorial team led by Dr. Thappa and thank all the IADVL functionaries for their kind cooperation during my editorial tenure of 6 years.