Many components comprise an academic medical journal: the Editorial Board, the secretarial staff who track correspondence and manuscripts, and the production staff who are responsible for the ultimate appearance of the product. In my brief tenure as Editor, it has become apparent that the real engines that drive an academic publication are the authors who entrust their manuscripts to the journal for consideration and the reviewers who spend considerable time and effort to ensure that the scientific methodology is sound and the conclusions are supported by data presented in an understandable manner.
The Editorial Board would like to thank the authors for submitting their manuscripts to this journal for consideration and the many referees who have spent their valuable time peer-reviewing those manuscripts. I am pleased to note that new manuscript submissions to Head & Neck have increased by 20% annually over the past 2 years. Recently, I have received considerable positive feedback from the readership regarding the quality of manuscripts published and the relevance to their clinical practice and academic pursuits. The authors and referees are to be credited with the continual improvement of Head & Neck. I would also like to sincerely thank the Associate Editors for their selection of referees in their respective fields and to the Series Editors who have solicited educational manuscripts from their colleagues in the basic sciences and patient care.