Meeting of the Editorial Board

The last meeting of the Editorial Board was in Vancouver on the 3rd May 2002 at the joint meeting of the International Spinal Cord Society and the American Spinal Injury Association.

Changes to Editorial Board

It is with regret that I have to announce the death of Dr Sarrias. Dr Sarrias was a very active member of the Editorial Board and we will miss his contribution tremendously. An obituary of Dr Sarrias will be appearing in the May issue of the Journal.

I am pleased to announce the following new members of the Board:

  • Dr S Aito

  • Dr J Yeo

  • Dr N Epstein

  • Dr B Perrouin-Verbe

  • Dr M Kreuter

The following members of the Board, Professor M Sullivan, Professor JB Barbenel, Dr P Wu, Professor C Tator, Dr T Pentelenyi, Mr I Nuseibeh, Professor RA Dickson, Dr BP Gardner, Dr S El-Gindi, Air Marshal AS Chahal and Dr Montero have now retired from service on the Board. I would like to thank the retiring members of the Editorial Board for the help and guidance they have given during their term of service. I am sure the Society is as appreciative as I am for the hard work, enthusiasm and support that they have shown.

Statistics

In 2001 we received 211 manuscripts. This is an improvement compared to previous years (2000: 189 mss, 1999: 192 mss), but it is still far fewer than I would like to receive in the Editorial Office.

Of the 211 manuscripts received, 112 were accepted (mostly after revision), and 49 were rejected. At present, there are about 40 manuscripts which are in the process of being revised.

The average time between a manuscript being submitted and a decision being made to reject, accept or send back for revision, is about 8 weeks. The average time between a decision to accept a manuscript and publication is about 12 weeks.

Review Articles

We have now published 44 review articles. The review articles have proved to be very popular, both with the members of the Society and with our publishers. There are still a number of review articles in the pipeline as it were, but I am always on the look out for new topics and new authors, and would be very happy to receive suggestions from the members.

Clinical Case of the Month

Clinical Case of the Month is a popular item in the Journal but we are having considerable difficulty in getting anybody to actually do the work to provide Clinical cases and this can be seen in our figures: In 1999 we published 11 Clinical Cases (ie almost one a month), in 2000 we only received one Clinical Case, and we have received two so far this year. I would strongly urge members to think seriously about providing a Clinical Case.

The proposed format for the Clinical Case of the Month is as follows

  • Title

  •  Names, degrees and addresses of all the participants

  • Abstract

  •  In most cases a structured abstract would not be applicable

  • Case presentation

  •  This should not be longer than one sheet of A4 typing

  • Questions and responses

  •  The panel of experts should be given a series of questions and the edited responses from each participant, identified by the initials of the participant, should come out at each question. Questions could include: Where is the neurological lesion? What are your recommendations for management? Etc etc

  • What was actually done

  • Discussion

  • References

Impact Factor

The Impact Factor for Spinal Cord for the 2000 is 0.913, which shows a considerable improvement compared to 1996 of 0.631 and 1998 of 0.608. Unfortunately we are no longer included in orthopaedics ranking which is a pity and Nature Publishing Group is trying to do something about this. At the present time we are only ranked amongst Clinical Neurological journals.

Spinal Cord Prize

The closing date for the next Spinal Cord Prize is 28th February 2003. Please encourage all your medical staff under the age of 39 to submit an article for this important valuable prize.

New Referees

We are always in need of new referees. Please let me have any names and addresses of people that you think might be suitable to act as referees for the Journal, together with their field of special interest.

Help with English Language

Many of the manuscripts that we receive are written in poor English. This is particularly the case when manuscripts come from less developed countries. If any member of the Society would like to help with the preparation and editing of such manuscripts, please let me know and I will put them in touch with the appropriate authors. This service would be of immense benefit to many of our members.