Andrés Martin completes his second 5-year term as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) at the end of this calendar year. Of JAACAP’s 6 editors to date, Dr. Martin was the youngest ever to take the helm. His approach energized the Journal, and his deep fount of knowledge, broad view of child psychiatry, global perspective, and even-handed judgment were evident from the beginning.
Much has changed for JAACAP during Dr. Martin’s tenure as editor. The editorial offices were permanently relocated to AACAP headquarters in Washington, DC, instead of moving to each new editor’s home institution. Having the skilled editorial staff housed within the AACAP central office has provided numerous opportunities for collaboration and integration. Under Dr. Martin’s tenure, JAACAP’s online presence grew to include paperless submission and peer review, pre-print online publication of articles and supplemental materials, and added-value content such as podcast author interviews and Continuing Medical Education opportunities. Authors hoping to publish their work in JAACAP have hybrid open-access options to meet funder requirements and to disseminate their work, and readers have enjoyed greater public accessibility, first for AACAP’s Practice Parameters and later Clinical Updates and Clinical Practice Guidelines. AACAP Annual Meeting attendees now access, read, and cite the scientific proceedings as JAACAP content. The look of the Journal changed as well, with original art relevant to each issue’s content gracing every cover. Today’s JAACAP also reflects Dr. Martin’s commitment to mentorship, as the John F. McDermott Assistant Editor-in-Residence Award and JAACAP Connect, both dedicated to building a pipeline of future authors, reviewers, and editors, were launched and nurtured under his watch.
In addition to these important innovations, Dr. Martin’s editorial leadership was associated with steady growth in the status of our Journal. Increasingly, seminal and cutting-edge research studies are first re- ported in JAACAP. This is perhaps most tangibly reflected in the movement of JAACAP’s impact factor, which reached new heights in 2014 at 7.260. Throughout Andrés’ term, the Journal’s robust citation performance has placed it among the top publications in both psychiatry and pediatrics. We take pride in the orange journal’s scientific success and consider it our organization’s flagship enterprise.
There is always a tension, in a journal such as ours, between the desire to publish the latest research in our field versus clinically focused articles with immediate applicability. Dr. Martin has successfully walked this fine line, having instituted article types such as Clinical Perspectives, Translations, and Clinical Reviews, as well as clinical guidance in select articles, to balance and contextualize the harder science.
JAACAP is thriving as Dr. Martin turns over the editorial reins to his successor, Douglas K. Novins, MD. The Journal is highly respected and widely read; it is efficient, profitable, and loved by authors and readers; and it is beautiful. We are indebted to Dr. Martin for his passion, his wisdom, and his devotion to making JAACAP the absolute best. Thank you, Dr. Martin.
This article originally appeared in JAACAP, Vol. 56, Issue 12, p1003. It is republished with permission.