Beginning in January 2012, version 2.0 of the Journal of Hospital Medicine will begin with the talented and capable Andrew Auerbach, MD, MPH taking over as Editor-in-Chief. A premier hospital medicine researcher, he possesses experience as a journal editor and practicing hospitalist. With Andy at the helm, JHM will certainly get an upgrade. As my 7-year tenure comes to an end, I look forward to moving on to new activities, but will dally a bit and reflect on this wonderful opportunity provided to me by the leadership of the Society of Hospital Medicine.
Undertaking with trepidation my role as the founding Editor-in-Chief in 2005, I recognized that a talented team of editors would be needed to achieve the expected goals for JHM-indexing in MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online) and selection for impact factor coverage by Thomson's Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) services. Thankfully, I learned from George Thibault, my egalitarian and brilliant residency program director at Massachusetts General Hospital, that successful leaders succeed by recruiting colleagues smarter than them. With no experience in journal editing beyond writing and reviewing articles, I leaned on numerous people more clever than me. Guided by Kathy Alexander and Vickie Thaw at Wiley-Blackwell, we put together the framework for the journal. Fortunately, remarkable people agreed to serve as the founding Associate Editors. The abilities of Scott Flanders, Karen Hauer, Jean Kutner, James Pile, and Kaveh Shojania are reflected in their subsequent selection for leadership positions at their institutions and internationally.
JHM's leadership team evolved with replacements and the addition of superbly talented members: