Pediatrics in Review (PIR) is 40 years old. When the first edition was published, I was a fourth-year medical student who just happened to read it before infectious disease rounds. Repeating aloud the content in the very first PIR review article, Group B Streptococcal Infections in Neonates by Dr. Carol Baker, made me look like a promising pediatric resident. Similarly, reading about mononucleosis in PIR just before going for a residency interview and offering “mono” as a possible diagnosis during interview rounds made me look like a very promising candidate. Three years and 4 years later, PIR played an important role in helping me pass the written and oral American Board of Pediatrics Board examinations. In private practice, while I may not have read every issue of PIR, I did read the table of contents of each issue so I knew where to look things up if I was stymied by a patient’s presentation. (This was way before the internet.) Skip forward to me switching to academic medicine, and PIR was instrumental in my eventual promotion to professorship as I progressed from Visual Diagnosis feature editor, to associate editor, to deputy editor, and now editor-in-chief. My former private practice partner jokes that I once bragged that I did not read every article in PIR. That is certainly not the case now; I read every article, in various forms, including the final printed version. I am a better clinician and teacher thanks to the journal.
Almost 2 years ago at an executive editorial board meeting, someone mentioned the journal’s upcoming 40th anniversary and suggested that perhaps we should have an extra 40 pages devoted to a combination of 40 cases, reviews, and commentaries. We laughed and then reflected, “Why not?!” The entire editorial board, when presented with the idea of a supplement celebrating 40 years of PIR, gave many suggestions, some of which are in the supplement. Thanks to Larry Nazarian, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ search engine Gateway, we were able to piece together how PIR evolved to what it is today. Many of the “junior” authors and readers of the articles in PIR’s first year are now considered experts; I argue that many of today’s “junior” authors in PIR and in the 40th anniversary supplement, as well as today’s “junior” readers, will be tomorrow’s experts, whether in private practice or in academics. Founding Editor Dr. Robert Haggerty did promise, “With this journal we hope to be of help in providing that knowledge base necessary to stay abreast of developments in all fields of child health care.”1
Reference:
- Haggerty RJ. Editorial Pediatrics in Review. Pediatrics in Review, Jul 1979, 1 (1) 3
