EBB: What is the biggest challenge JGIM has faced in the last two years?

Editors: After the onset of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we saw a tsunami of submissions, rising from about 2,200 in 2019, to 3,716 in 2020, and 3,277 in 2021. The monthly number of submissions peaked at 450 in April 2020 with an average of about 300 per month since then, compared with an average of about 180 per month in the year before the pandemic. Thanks to the hard work of the entire team, including the associate editors and managing editors, we were able to weather the storm and increase the acceptance rate from 19% in 2019 to 25% in 2020 and 24% in 2021.

EBB: What are the top achievements of JGIM in the last two years?

Editors: In addition to managing the tsunami of submissions, Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM) achieved its highest Impact Factor ever. According to the last report on Journal Impact Factors published in summer 2021,1 JGIM’s Impact Factor was 5.128 in 2020 (up from 4.597 in 2019), ranking 27th among the 167 journals in the general and internal medicine category, 11th among the 107 journals in the health care sciences and services category, and third among primary care journals.

In the last two years, we published supplements sponsored by the Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Research and Health Services Research and Development service on opiate safety, patient engagement in healthcare research, and women’s health care, as well as a supplement sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Kaiser Permanente on implementation science. We launched a History of Medicine series and made plans for the imminent launch of a Medical Decision Making series. We also launched an editorial fellowship program in 2021 with an initial cadre of three editorial fellows for a two-year fellowship.

EBB: What are your top priorities for the next year?

Editors: Our priorities for the next year include increasing the number of issues from 12 to 16 per year, selecting a second class of editorial fellows, increasing the diversity of the deputy editors, and enhancing the Journal’s web site. We remain committed to JGIM being a leader in publishing articles about health disparities, implementation science, and medical education.

EBB: What have you enjoyed most about being the editors of JGIM?

JJ: I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie of the editorial team and the co-editors in chief and admired the collective wisdom of our associate editors; they invariably have great suggestions on how to deal with complicated issues and to improve our journal.

SA: Being an editor of JGIM is like being a kid in an intellectual candy shop. You learn so much even from the articles we can’t publish. And just when you think you have seen it all, you learn something new again. It is great to see the enormous variety of issues that SGIM members (and others) tackle and have a chance to influence the way people think about the care they work so hard at.

CB: I love Steve’s comment about being a kid in an intellectual candy shop. JGIM has never been more important than we are today given the state of the world, and I feel incredibly honored and grateful to have this role.

References

Issue

Topic

Health Equity, Health Policy & Advocacy, Leadership, Administration, & Career Planning, Medical Education, Research, SGIM

Author Descriptions

Dr. Bass (basse@sgim.org) is SGIM’s CEO. Drs. Asch (sasch@stanford.edu), Bates (cbates@bidmc.harvard.edu), and Jackson (jjackson@mcw.edu) are co-editors of JGIM.

Share