“Accordingly, THE CANADIAN MEDICAL [ASSOCIATION] JOURNAL is issued, as a medium for the expression of all that is best in Canadian Medicine.” CMAJ 1911;1:57.
The past year has been a remarkable one in the life of this scholarly medical journal. The Editor-in-Chief was dismissed, and many of the scientific editors who saw the journal into the year resigned. The report of the CMAJ Governance Review Panel has been delivered to and accepted by the CMA Board.1 The new governance structure enshrines editorial independence and has clear lines of communication and accountability. At the time of writing, the search process for a new Editor-in-Chief was nearing completion.
My remit on taking on the editorship of the journal last March was to ensure that CMAJ continued to appear every 2 weeks and that its usual high standards were maintained. We have not missed a single issue deadline, weekly submissions are up beyond the number for this time last year and we have included in this issue our annual Holiday Review section, an impossible dream back in July. Readers will judge the enduring quality of the journal for themselves, but during the time of our duress, it was deeply affirming to have authors continue to submit quality work and reviewers carry out timely, thoughtful reviews. Many colleagues delivered encouraging notes and offers of help, some of which were taken up. Even among those few who sent messages critical of the journal or its new editors, we could see the depth of feeling for what CMAJ has come to represent in Canadian medical life.
And now it is time for me to leave my role as interim Editor-in-Chief of CMAJ. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the in-house editorial staff, who experienced their fair share of the turmoil, to the scientific editors who stayed on and to the new editors who joined us, and to the Interim Editorial Board. I also want to say thank you to the journal's readers, authors and reviewers, without whom the CMAJ would not exist. I am confident that all of these stakeholders will remain committed to full sail for Canada's flagship medical journal as it moves forward under new leadership.