In 2001, I was honored by the offer to become Editor- in-Chief of Microsurgery. I had long known and respected this journal, and I had just completed an apprenticeship of sorts by serving as an associate editor under Dr. Vaughan Bowen, the journal's immediately previous editor.
One of the first questions to come up after I undertook the editorship was the actual structure of the editorial office. At the time, the publisher maintained editorial board offices in Europe and Asia, as well one in the United States. The 3 offices were supposed to recruit contributors in their respective regions and help insure that Microsurgery maintained an international position consistent with its founding intentions.
There were a number of problems facing the journal at that time, so for the sake of administrative simplicity I elected to consolidate the editorial office into a single center under my supervision. I then canvassed the incumbent editorial board to reestablish active commitments to prompt review of manuscripts, submission of original work, and encouragement of colleagues to consider submitting manuscripts to Microsurgery. A number of board members elected to let their appointments expire. Working with remaining members of the board and other professional contacts, I distributed these vacancies to interested individuals who, I hoped, would reconstitute on the board a diversity of interests and regions necessary for the journal's commitment to publishing articles representing the broad scope of research and clinical work associated with microsurgery.
Several individuals questioned if these changes would lead to a North American regionalization of the journal. The question remained one of concern, and with that concern in mind, I have recently reviewed original articles and invited reviews appearing in Volume 24 of Microsurgery to evaluate the journal's regional distribution of contributors (Tables 1Γ3).